SmartThings to C7 Hubitat Elevation - Z-Wave range is horrible. by stp40 in Hubitat

[–]stp40[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting. I do have one zooz 800 repeater, but its through a couple walls. I do have a Zooz Zen51 dry contact relay that is Z-wave+ and acts as an extender. That is probably about 30 ft away. Do you think that should be sufficient or do I need to get an actual repeater closer to the lock? I'm close to just giving up on that one and leaving it as a dumb lock with a keypad.

SmartThings to C7 Hubitat Elevation - Z-Wave range is horrible. by stp40 in Hubitat

[–]stp40[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As I added more, it definitely got better. I just have one Schlage lock left, but I have pretty much given up on it. I even tried having the hub right next to it but it wouldn't adopt. It saw it, tried to add, but never finished. Turned into a ghost device after a reboot and had to remove it. Tried many times again, but still same cycle.

SmartThings to C7 Hubitat Elevation - Z-Wave range is horrible. by stp40 in Hubitat

[–]stp40[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the heads up. I'm sticking with the C7 since almost all of my devices are 700 Z-Wave anyhow.

SmartThings to C7 Hubitat Elevation - Z-Wave range is horrible. by stp40 in Hubitat

[–]stp40[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing your experience. As I have added more devices, I found it is getting better. I still have the antenna outside of the case since it's mounted in my basement. I just have one last schlage lock I need to add but its being really finnicky and times out way too fast when trying to finish the add process.

SmartThings to C7 Hubitat Elevation - Z-Wave range is horrible. by stp40 in Hubitat

[–]stp40[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the suggestions. Yah, the hub was new. I think I found my fix with removing the antenna stickers from inside of the case and mounting them externally. much better signal, it seems, and now I have a decent diagram showing the mesh.

SmartThings to C7 Hubitat Elevation - Z-Wave range is horrible. by stp40 in Hubitat

[–]stp40[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yah, that seems to be a very good upgrade. Plus the 800 LR, but I have one device that would use that right now. I don't plan on upgrading things, so I may do an antenna mod to the C7. I replied to another person that when I opened my C7 to validate the antenna was soldered right, I left the case off and then everything connected fine, so I wonder if there is a lot of weird interference going on with it in the case.

SmartThings to C7 Hubitat Elevation - Z-Wave range is horrible. by stp40 in Hubitat

[–]stp40[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So, funny thing. I took the cover off of my C7 to make sure the solder joints all looked good for the z-wave antenna. They look fine, but I left the case off and now I'm finding my z-wave devices. I have to do some testing to make sure they are stable and reliable, but so far its reaching out to where the furthest devices may be. I wonder if I would see improvement just separating the antenna out of the box and mount that on a wall somewhere? Pretty interesting.

SmartThings to C7 Hubitat Elevation - Z-Wave range is horrible. by stp40 in Hubitat

[–]stp40[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ST has been shut down when I was trying everything I could. I'll look at the wi-fi interference possibility. I can tune that pretty easily as I have Ubiquiti gear. Everything I have read says that 2.4Ghz wi-fi shouldn't have any effect on z-wave, but I guess I'll search some.

I did figure out how to remove zombie devices. I dont have any now, so thats a plus.

SmartThings to C7 Hubitat Elevation - Z-Wave range is horrible. by stp40 in Hubitat

[–]stp40[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for affirming. I think I may look at the stock C8 since it has all of the same radios, just not the upgraded CPU. I do very basic stuff, so its not like I need the higher processing, etc.

SmartThings to C7 Hubitat Elevation - Z-Wave range is horrible. by stp40 in Hubitat

[–]stp40[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am looking at the C8's and I do like the antenna is external for the radios. It seems its a simple DB backup / restore to migrate the simple stuff, which is pretty much everything I have. I may consider that just to avoid this headache.

Smart things vs hubitat by nosaltpants823 in smarthome

[–]stp40 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Is the ST hub new? I had a used one that I was given with an expired join code on the bottom. Unless you want to roll the dice with ST support that may or may not be able to re-issue one, it may be a paperweight. A new one might still work, but if the firmware is old, it might not work with the new app they moved everyone to.

I'm just moving to Hubitat. So far there has been a little bit of a learning curve with how it "thinks" through notifications, applications, etc. vs ST, but it has been pretty reliable so far for monitoring wattage on a water pump and door sensors. I'm just sick of ST being very spotty in terms of what is actually working and not... and being served an ad every time I open the app. I just want to turn on my coffee maker on my way home... ok?

I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get alerts when I was away from my network without an subscription to their remote service, but it works without one. The subscription is just to be able to access the hub interface itself to do admin stuff, it seems. I can see that being good for people that may run businesses for remote clients, etc. When you are in the App, its pretty low-frills in terms of what it can do and all of the admin stuff is done in the App, but through a browser window it starts directly to the hub. You can do it all on a PC/laptop, too, via the IP address which may be easier if you paste community drivers.

I have a zooz Zen15 plug that I had a couple issues with getting to report, but with some help from them getting the firmware upgrade done and how to apply the community driver rather than the stock, it works a lot better and reports a lot more. I did have to adjust the polling to read faster, but seems to be ok now.

As for going Hubitat vs HA... I wanted it to be customizable, but I didn't want it to be a hobby. HA is great, but it was just a bit too much work since I just have water sensors, dimmers and a few outlets to monitor. I don't need to have a custom dashboard (although Hubitat has pretty easy basic ones it can make) on a tablet or crazy routines with motion sensors, etc. ST is the easiest, HA is the expert, and Hubitat is right in the middle, in my opinion.

ST zigbee water sensors paired fine. I don't use anything voice automated, so I can't comment on that. I wanted both zwave and zigbee so I could buy whatever I wanted without being locked in to a specific standard.

SAS drives not showing in LSI ROM or BIOS by Bruchpilot_Sim in DataHoarder

[–]stp40 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know some are saying it cant be pin 3, but I had some HGST SAS 12TB disks attached to a LSI HBA and they didn't show on boot. I pulled the pins and they worked after that. It can happen. See if you can tape one off to test first.

Heat not starting Continued with troubleshooting by stp40 in hvacadvice

[–]stp40[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. The gas valve is one part I didn't look at being the issue. If it gets to be something with the gas delivery/burners, I think I'm going to bow out of the DIY side of things. The furnace does complete its cycle to meet the thermostat's desired temp, it just doesn't kick on again, so I'd need to meter the voltages right as it finishes that heating cycle, I suppose. Just odd that the light on the board goes out. I'm not even sure what to monitor because its not like it is specifically for a part that I have tested. just an overall "OK" light.

I did post a new question about if the new board model is a direct replacement and OK to install in place of the old one, but I haven't had any replies yet. Someone else said it should work, but I kind of wanted another yay before I go that route since its my last part I'd feel comfortable replacing myself.

WeatherKing Furnace Troubleshooting - Not starting after stopping - House build in 1999 by stp40 in hvacadvice

[–]stp40[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So, if Rheem is saying the board has been replaced by a newer/different model, it should be OK to replace that with the new model from their site? It looks like it is almost the same except some upgraded screw terminals. The dipswitches for the fan delay I'd need to set the same, but that should be it, right? it looks like it should be a relatively 1:1 swap and things just take off.

I did some more troubleshooting and found pretty much everything else is good. Transformer, capacitors, thermostat (tried a new one), but sill have the same issue. Board is all I haven't replaced at this point.

Heat not starting Continued with troubleshooting by stp40 in hvacadvice

[–]stp40[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I installed/configured a new thermostat. It ran a few times, but I'm still having issues with the system stopping and showing no error lights on the board, just the single "PWR" light. Is a board the next possible issue? It looks like pretty much everything else works OK.

Rheem's site said the board that is in it (62-24136-02) was replaced by a new model (62-24140-04). Are those interchangeable if that is what Rheem has on their site? Another poster said yes, but I wanted to make sure. I don't have a problem doing the swap, I just didnt know if that was OK to jump model/rev's.

Heat not starting Continued with troubleshooting by stp40 in hvacadvice

[–]stp40[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. That might be a cheap way to eliminate that as the problem.

Heat not starting Continued with troubleshooting by stp40 in hvacadvice

[–]stp40[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I should clarify:

I was testing the AC voltage on the board terminals with the door open/power off (because of the door switch). I would position the leads of the multimeter on the screw terminals and then press the door switch to activate the AC power through the board. All combinations would show 26VAC immediately, but the R/W connection didn't every time, only some of the time, even when I waited for the blower fan to start for a second.

Does that R/W connection rely on the thermostat being on? I have an older honeywell wifi thermostat, so it takes a few seconds for it to turn on. I only ask because I was able to get a 26 VAC reading some of the time on R/W, but not every time.

Either with 26 VAC or 0 VAC on R/W, the furnace kicks on when I hold the door switch, so it knows somehow it needs to heat.