Hello.
I have a few Smartthings outlets. I believe they run on Zigbee. Would they still work to extend the Zwave range? What is their range?
Some of my zwave devices are too far away and I feel like I keep adding outlets nearby without it really changing anything
Zigbee only extends zigbee, Z wave only extends Z wave.
Start with this FAQ, and in particular, read post 11. It should help a lot.
One more thought. While I understand the marketing reasons for the decision, the fact that SmartThings gives customers zero guidance on how to set up a network backbone does lead to a lot of frustration that shouldn’t have to exist. if people knew that
.1) The hub should be located centrally in the home, both vertically and horizontally. Don’t put it in a garage or basement as those have concrete and pipes and metal objects which will reduce signal. If your Internet router is off in some inaccessible corner, you can use a Wi-Fi access point that has a ethernet port on the side and plug into that. Also, the hub should not be put in a cabinet. You just want to make it as easy as possible for signal to spread around your house.
.2) you need one device that can repeat about every 40 feet…
After reading that post, just scroll up and read the whole thread, there’s a lot of helpful information there.
And if you want even more information after that, see the article on repeaters in the community – created wiki.
http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Is_this_device_a_repeater%3F
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As a note, the Iris outlets from Lowe’s (which are basically the same as the SmartThings outlets - same manufacturer - CentraLite) will work to extend your ZigBee and Z-Wave mesh as they have Z-Wave repeaters built into them as well.
They can be found here
More information can be found below for pairing. I’d recommend changing them to the local SmartPower Outlet DTH instead of using the custom DTH below.
The Iris Smart Plug is a rebranded Centralite on/off plug which looks remarkably similar to the SmartThings SmartPower Outlet. In fact, this is a new version of the same hardware which adds a very interesting feature; A Z-Wave Plus repeater within the Zigbee HA 1.2 Plug.
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Because this device has two different wireless protocols within it, it will effectively be treated as two separate devices within SmartThings. The following is how you will need to pair each device and get it working within your system:
First: The Zigbee Outlet
In order to pair the Zigbee Outlet, first add the devicetype at the bottom of this post to your IDE. Once you have the devicetype added and published, open the SmartThings app and hit ‘Connect New Device’ within the Marketplace. After SmartThings starts…
