I’ve had ST in my house for quite a while. Started out with a V1 hub, updated to V2 and never had a full house working at once for more than a day or two. I’ve completely started over, deregistered and re-registered every device, tried moving my hub to different locations and still can’t seem to get it working anywhere past about 10 feet from the hub. I’ve taken all devices and set then up one by one in the garage with the hub 10 feet away, all devices work fine. I’d try and move a device 20 feet away and it is longer seeing any of the grid. Gee, my garage has all kinds of dimmers and switches working great, but come outside of the garage and not in plain site of the hub, no connection. Tried repairing the grid, no help. Could it be just a weak hub? Is there any way to test them? Truly getting fed up after no less than 40+ hours of trying to get some simple automation. Could I have one device screwing up my signals?
It may just be the location. Garages are notoriously difficult to get signal in and out of. Lots of metal, often the walls are insulated, often concrete, temperature and humidity variations, it’s just challenging. A classic exam question for network engineering students is the issue of a network that fails after the homeowner arrives home, and it turns out to be because of the car in the garage.
The best place for your hub is located centrally both vertically and horizontally in clear air in a regular interior room in your home.
There could also be a number of other things going on, so I would just contact support and let them look at it from their side:
The following might also be of help:
The garage was my last attempt. This all started in the house. I had the hub sitting in the middle of my living room with cables laying across the floor running to it, when that didn’t work, I tried the garage. Do you know of anything that I can use to check for competing readio waves or signals in the area?
What specific devices are you having problems with? Brand and model? SmartThings supports both zigbee and Z wave and these operate on different frequencies, so get interference from different sources.
I’ve got around 30 different devices. Outlets, switches, dimmers, temp, humidity, door lock, garage door, lamp modules, motions, etc… Both Zigbee and Z-Wave. Started out with a VERA system, moved to a Homeseer but didn’t like their interface, then tried ST as I was looking for simplicity so wife & kids could use it on their phones.
OK, so were you using the same Z wave devices with the Homeseer and the vera? And did they work fine with those?
As far as zigbee the usual source of interference for it is boosted Wi-Fi. So the first thing is to make sure that the smartthings hub is at least 3 feet away from your Wi-Fi router and any Wi-Fi access point. But again, that only affects zigbee, not zwave.
I have most of my electronics in a closet, Fios, DirecTV, Phone, Wireless, etc. I used to have the Homeseer in the closet with all that and it worked. Changed over to ST and had to move the hub out of the closet, too much interference. It’s been downhill since then. I just tried to attach a door lock and the hub was only 15 feet away and couldn’t find it. There’s 2 other sensors within a foot of the door and still didn’t see it. Finally got it hooked up and within 10 minutes it no longer show available and will fail a Zwave repair.
Unless the sensors are plug-in, they won’t make any difference for the lock. Only plug in devices can act as repeaters. And locks need to be closer than anything else during pairing because they have a whole separate layer of security.
That’s why I would really need to know the exact brand and model of each of the devices to figure out what your network backbone looks like. See post 11 in the following thread:
All of that said, I really think your best bet at this point is to get in touch with support. There are a lot of things that they can see from their side that we don’t have access to as customers.