SmartThings Hub - ZWave, Seperate Shop Building

[Whiskeymike]

I just purchased a Smartthings hub and will be integrating it with Echo, Ecobee thermostats, smart power plugs & switches for the most part. I'm deploying it in a single family home and have 6 acres. About 200 feet from the house, I have a metal building shop (30x40) that is on a different power supply from the electrical company, and it's connected via cat5 ethernet for internet access in the shop. I have a wifi bridge in the shop that connects to the Cat5 cable.

The questions I have are...

Are z-wave switches 200 feet away with the wireless going through masonry and a metal building wall going to communicate? It seems unlikely as wifi will not reach the shop (hence the hardwired cat5)

Assuming they won't connect that far with those materials, is there an easy way to repeat the z-wave out to the shop via ethernet?

I understand I can't add a second hub unless I make a new second location, which I'd prefer to avoid if I can manage it all in one place the other way.

I understand that each zwave device is a repeater, but is there something that would go over wifi? or another approach you guys have used to control the z-wave devices?

 

[jbwilkins]

I haven't tried doing what you're looking for, but I think you'll be out of luck. I had to add an outlet as a repeater in my home just to make a switch in the other side of the house work.

As far as I know you can't convert the signal to another protocol even though it's very low bandwidth. I've been playing with Zwave for 6-8 years.....I think you're stuck with a 2nd bridge...



Edit: there may be something out there after all....HomeSeer has a Zwave remote, but it only works with their product....someone else might have a generic version....

 

[pgray007]

As mentioned, homeseer makes an IP based zwave controller, which is what I use in my outbuilding. I'm using with homeseer, but I know people have hacked smart things to do all manner of tricks so might be worth some investigation. I do rather like Homeseer despite the crummy UI, so that could also be an option. I run two of the ZNet devices, one in the house and one in the outbuilding. It's technically 2 separate zwave networks, but that's invisible to the end user. I'm controlling Lighting on UPB and the two zwave networks, but that's all behind the scenes as the user just sees "Workshop" and the name of the light.


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[ard]

Do you have anything electric between the house and the shop? just wiring a zwave module into an existing light on a pole, landscape light or outdoor receptacle could be a way of repeating it....

Or have a zwave on the exterior wall of the house, a receptacle or light or something and the same on the outer wall of the shop

 

[Git]

As others have mentioned - Z wave is considered a 'mesh network'

Each device relays the signal to all the other devices and the range between devices is around 100 to 120 feet. Also, it can hop between devices up to four times so if you did it right you could be almost 500 feet away

 

[ard]

Oh, the new devices with z-wave PLUS, (the new standard) will have much better range. I think 300 easy in open air, even More. Research it. I seem to recall 150 meters being quoted

Out of the house, then 200 ft and then inside a metal building might not work, but two zwave plus devices on exterior walls Id guess yes.

 

[pgray007]

Do you have anything electric between the house and the shop? just wiring a zwave module into an existing light on a pole, landscape light or outdoor receptacle could be a way of repeating it....

Or have a zwave on the exterior wall of the house, a receptacle or light or something and the same on the outer wall of the shop

On that note, GE makes an outdoor switch that's essentially a weather resistant box with a 3 prong pigtail (I use them for Christmas lights) that's pretty unobtrusive and might help for repeating.


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[Denwood]

I managed to get my detached shop connected (both ZigBee and zwave) adding ZigBee lamp modules and zwave relays on corresponding closest walls. This however is only 50ft or so. Given your outbuilding is 200ft, but wired (and based on my experience) you are better off adding another smarthings hub as you suggested, or using Vera which does allow secondary hubs acting as Ethernet bridges. I use both systems at different locations and quite frankly, Vera is more reliable once you get through the learning curve. The VeraPlus in each location would give you reliable bridged ZigBee and Zwave controlled from one location.

Zwave only allows 4 hops on the mesh, so even adding powered devices between your buildings, you may exceed this limitation depending on where your home hub is. ZigBee allows more hops, and better range...although based on my setup the range is not much better through walls.

PG, I'm using a few GE outdoor modules..range on these is not too impressive.

 

[sprchrgd1]

You can use Wink. Which also has ethernet on their V2 hub. Wink allows secondary Z wave controllers which can be accessed through one account. The secondary hub can be located anywhere that has internet access. 2oo' or 2000 miles doesn't matter. This is how I accomplish what you are trying to do.

 

[sbarton]

I'm trying to figure out how to do this with my garage which is 175' away with a small barn half way between. I tried installing Z-Wave plus devices but they don't reach. I then used some Iris ZigBee Smart Plugs and the ZigBee reaches both barn and garage no problem. I think the issue may be that Z-Wave is limited to 4 hops and ZigBee is limited to 15 hops. My Z-Wave may have used too many hops.
If you have internet out in the garage, you could then use a combination of ZigBee and WiFi products.
GE makes a ZigBee light switches/dimmers. Many of the SmartThings and Iris branded devices are ZigBee.

Another possibly solution is to use a Wink Hub in the garage and setup virtual devices/swtches in SmartThings that correspond with the real devices in your garage.
You would then use IFTTT.com to keep the real devices and SmartThings virtual devices in sync. Only issue is that with the latest update of IFTTT, when they changed from recipes to apps, it looks like Wink lost the ability to use Open/Close and On/Off as Triggers. Hoping this will come back as it would make it the best solution.

Make sure you check out
http://community.smartthings.com and http://thingsthataresmart.wiki

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=How_to_Automate_an_Outbuilding

This Universal Virtual Device Type is awesome:
https://community.smartthings.com/t/release-universal-virtual-device-type-and-translator/47836