Z Wave reroute question

Devices & Integrations Connected Things
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I have an EcoLink door contact on my backgate (protected from weather). It’s waaaaaay back across the back 40. 200 or 300 feet, not sure.

It works… Ok. If I stand in front of it it won’t register a change of state. Although my SmartThings V2 hub is at the back of my house on the 3rd floor, I still put an Aeotec Range Extender 6 in the back window that faces that gate.

I ran a “repair Zwave network” as I do when I add/change things (I added several door contacts. LOL None that far). I looked at the back gate contact and it shows " This Device (7B)↔ Stair Light Two↔ Home Hub"

Stair Light Two is on the second floor in the middle of my house!

I’m rarely back there. I have one so in case it IS left opened, I won’t let my dogs out until I close it. But I worry it might not have the greatest connection, and I really thought the repeater would latch onto it. Can I FORCE it to be: Device - Repeater - Hub? Other suggestions?

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You can, but only by cutting power completely to every other repeating device on your network before running the repair. :scream:. And it’s not a permanent fix: you’ll have to do the same thing every time you want to run another zwave repair.

Other suggestions?

Don’t worry about it. :wink: zwave is a self healing mesh and the radios are Omni directional. It’s using several different factors and a lot of calculations to determine what the best route is. it’s designed to not need a human to do the routing, and you don’t have all the information to do it anyway. Just let the network do its job. It may have picked that repeater because it wasn’t very busy, and the overall network efficiency improved.

Your human contribution to network efficiency is to provide enough devices in enough physical places so that the network can do its job.

If something isn’t working, like your gate sensor not getting the signal through, then you probably need to add an additional repeater somewhere not too far away and ideally off at an angle. Then run your repair and let the network decide what to do.

By the way, as I have said many times before in these forums, we did need single purpose range extenders back during the third generation of Zwave. We don’t need them now. Any zwave plus mains Powered device, including light switches, plug-in pocket sockets and sensors, and zwave plus lightbulbs, will do just as good a job of repeating as the single purpose devices, will probably cost significantly less, and gives you additional functionality. :sunglasses:

In your case, if you have a sheltered location and your weather isn’t too extreme, the new illumin lightbulbs From Inovelli are a $20 alternative that gives you some additional location choices. If you have a multi story house you can even try putting one inside near an upstairs window on the side facing the sensor and see if it can pick up signal from that angle.

https://www.amazon.com/Dimmable-SmartThings-Repeater-Powered-Inovelli/dp/B07VGB8Q61/

Otherwise Eva Logik has a couple of outdoor rated plug-in pocket sockets for under $40 each which make good repeaters and could be useful in the yard. One has one controllable outlet and one always on outlet, and the other costs about $5 more and has two separately controllable outlets.

https://www.amazon.com/Outdoor-Z-Wave-Appliance-Required-SmartThings/dp/B07Q1NZMZL/

But in any case, don’t try to override the network’s options for repeaters. It has multiple reasons for choosing the routes that it does. But do give it enough devices so that it can make good choices and provide the QOS you need. :wink:

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Everything JD said, but also - if your connection isn’t reliable, you might want to set up something like Device Monitor to alert you if your connection is dropped. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t have any issues running under the new app.

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GENIUS! Thanks to you both!!

I have a LOT of Zwave devices (well, I think it’s a lot - 50 plugged in devices, 27 Battery) so ok, if it wants to decide for itself, who am I to question why??

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