Re: RF light switch

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

"wkearney99" <wkearney99@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>> What is the maximum distance between the repeater and individual
>receivers?
>
>The repeater is placed centrally.  In the basement, nestled up in the space
>between floor joists.
>
>> Lutron says each repeater covers about 2500ft² which would imply about a
>28
>> foot radius. I've seen their dealer/installers recommend 20-25 feet.
>
>The farthest one is about 33' away.  That and it's essentially 'outside' in
>a sunroom that was converted by previous owners from an outside porch area.
>A room known to have trouble picking up 802.11 signals from a base station
>placed in just about the same location as the RadioRA repeater. Granted, the
>frequencies are different, but it's pretty damn impressive to someone who's
>put up with X10 crap all these years.
>
>I've not tried further distances but I do have an outside shed that's about
>20' feet further away from the sunroom switch.  At some point I'll try using
>a RadioRA switch out there just to see if it works.

Neither frequency is a good comparison to ZigBee and Z-Wave. As I recall,
Lutron uses 418MHz in the US and 433MHz in Europe. Both will travel further
than the 802.11 frequency. ZigBee and Z-Wave are in the 902-928MHz range.

And adding a switch to an outbuilding won't really add much data to the
issue of "indoor" range.

As for the crappy X-10 RF stuff, I get 150-200' range and for much less than
the cost of a single RadioRA device.