@JDRoberts - Knowledgeable as always 
- I had read Zigbee was much more prevalent in Europe but that may have been referred to the Industrial market. I work for a multinational test and automation company so I may have applied what I read for our market to home automation. Either way, it would be best for Scott to use devices that operate on legal bands in the UKā¦ If one must transgress the law, I would do it using a US zigbee rather than a US zwave. My opinion is that it is way harder to get caught causing trouble with a device operating on a legal frequency but at a few mW too many than operating a device on a prohibited band. In realityā¦ the power output is so low that nobody might ever even notice and no harm may ever come from itā¦ but you never know.
Thanks for the responses, folks.
FWIW, my nearest neighbour is around 1/4 mile away so I doubt that Iām either suffering from, nor causing, any kind of interference.
It looks like Iāve swallowed some of the hype re z-wave range too readily and that Iāll need to get a repeater - I have understood the differences between a UK and US repeater and their voltage / physical plug requirements.
I also have a number of zigbee devices (presence detectors and Philips Hue kit) and I believe they will work fine with my US hub.
Iām not inclined to throw the US Hub away - Iāll persevere. My job is half in the UK and half in the US so I have the luxury of being able to buy (or, if it all fails, sell) kit in either country.
Again, thanks for the responses - Iām an electronics engineer and software developer to trade but the whole home-automation thing is new to me.
I never knew what it was like without a strong line powered Zwave network.
When I bought into HA, I bout a bunch of Zwave In Wall Hard Wired switches as well as a bunch of plug in switches for various things. Not purposeful to create a mesh but just so happened that I wanted them for various things.
Turns out there is a in wall zwave switch by each of my doors that has a contact sensor in it.So I have never ran into the range issue you experienced hereā¦
Surprised me just how short it isā¦ get a plug in zwave device or switch, put it in there and youāll be good.
Ordered one - looks like two week delivery so Iāll have a wait to see whether it fixes it!
In the meantime, Iāve moved the ST hub to the other side of the living room (rather than being ~6 inches from the wifi / broadband router) and performance seems much improved.