I have a large outbuilding, about 100 feet from my home. I want to make the lights/doors/switches/cameras/sensors all connect to my smarthings hub located in my home. I did run a cat6 cable out between the buildings, and thought I would add an ap/router for better wifi service out there anyhow, but as for the smarthings devices, is there a way to connect these back to the smarthings hub in my house?
If I need to use a second smartthings hub, is there a good way to combine them on one account so my app looks like 1 network of stuff? And can any of the devices in my house control the devices in the outbuilding, if they are on different hubs?
There is a how to article in the community – created wiki on automating an outbuilding that should give you some ideas:
https://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=How_to_Automate_an_Outbuilding
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Hi @rttaylor, yes there is a way to connect from the outbuilding to the hub in your home. It all depends on the device and any interference (walls, trees, landscaping, and even rain). Zigbee and Zwave have different ranges and will behave differently.
You will want a repeater device (like a switch or wall plug) in your home as close to a line of sight (if possible) to your outbuilding, and then another repeater in the outbuilding. You’ll want to join the repeater in your home first, and then join the one in the outbuilding. If all goes well the device in the outbuilding will route through the one in the home, and if all goes well with that, any device you install in the outbuilding and join to ST should route through the outbuilding’s repeater. You can see device routes in the IDE. Here’s an example of my mailbox sensor that’s about 60 feet away:
This question gets asked quite a bit in the community, which JD just included above.
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