Spruce Irrigation in Europe and Zigbee signal strength

I posted in the FAQ section yesterday but I imagine not many people will look at long quiet thread.

Impressively I got a fast, weekend answer from Spruce Irrigation to a question about Zigbee signal strength if one uses a US sourced Spruce system with ST in Europe and whether it complies with European legislation to contain Zigbee signal strength and not use boosted signal levels. Here’s what they said:

“We do use a boosted signal strength of around 20 for the Spruce Sensor. The Sensor should automatically adjust the maximum power level depending on which channel is being used. However, we don’t know what channels SmartThings uses in the UK, and have not verified the device’s signal strength outside of US or Canada.”

Anyone know how I find out what channel ST uses for Zigbee in the UK, please?

@aaron should be able to find out for you what the possible channels are.

When a SmartThings hub is manufactured, it is assigned a Zigbee channel from one of several options. Once it is assigned, it cannot be changed again.

Since you already have a hub, you will be able to see what Zigbee channel you are now using in the IDE.

You’re right, JD, I should have looked there before posting. It clearly says:
“zigbeeChannel: 20” in the IDE for my hub.

I’ll go back to Spruce Irrigation and ask if this channel would get a boosted signal. As a Brit owning a house in France, the last thing I would want to do is install a system that is in breach of their regulations and find out I’ve strayed into a bandwidth used by emergency services or a defence usage or something. I guess it’s unlikely as the house is in the middle of countryside and farmland but I’d prefer to stay on the right side of the legislation however much I want to ensure that the vegetables get the right amount of water when we are not there!

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@t.hills51 Would also be interested in the outcome of this Spruce enquiry so if you have time please keep us updated!

Thanks.

After the initial rapid response last Saturday, I’ve heard nothing more after I sent them the Zigbee Channel information that my hub is using (channel 20). I’ll post if and when I hear something.

Finally received a reply from the Spruce support team.
Unfortunately, their current system exceeds allowed zigbee power levels in Europe. They hope to have a version which automatically adjusts to the maximum power level allowed locally. No clear dates yet, maybe later in 2016.
Disappointing but at least they follow up and respond.
Meanwhile I’ll have to depend upon traditional watering methods. Perhaps I’ll at least be able to use an ST power socket to allow remote control of an old style irrigation system.

Hi Trevor,

Don’t know if you ever got any updates from Spruce but I am looking to use their smart soil sensors for irrigation control in Portugal. Be interested to know if they modified the system to be compatible in the EU.

Regards

Andy

p.s. I’ve sent them an email asking the question but it would be interesting to know if anyone has actually successfully used them over here.

Hi Andy

No, I’m afraid not. I’ve looked around the web a couple of times since my posts back in 2016 but I haven’t seen any European offering. As far as I am aware, their system would still offend European legal requirements since it uses higher zigbee power levels.
I too would like to hear if it can be used in Europe. I’m using battery powered timers for controlling watering which can be very sub-optimal when the weather changes whilst we are away.

Hi,

Just had a an answer from them…no it doesn’t support European standards…and they didn’t give any indication that they would…just that people in Europe generally get it shipped to them from the states to a forwarding agent and on…so there might be a few people using it, err, illegally in the EU!

Hard to believe they’d cut themselves off from such a huge market but there you go.

I have to say it looks such a neat product I’m wondering if there would be any practical problem running it anyway…if they support channel 20. Thinking of covering it with something to drop the emitted power level.