Re: Z-Wave RF range

["Robert L Bass" <robertbass1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> No but I have other RF remotes here...
> Plus I do lots of EMC measurements for a living.
>
> I haven't tried Z-Wave yet because I
> have experienced lack of range on all of the RF gear we have. Pretty much
> what Pete mentioned in a post further
> below.

If you're referring to the fellow who calls himself Petem, he's disingenuous, even more so than Houston.  If I said Z-Wave was awful
he'd claim it was the best thing since sliced bread.  There's a raft of these charactewrs who wander in from the alarm newsgroup,
posting garbage. He's one of them.  You can pretty much dismiss anything he says.

It sounds like you've got a home that for some unknown reasons is problematic for RF.  That doesn't make Z-Wave good or bad.  It
just means your house is RF unfriendly.

> You can end a phone conversation simply
> by walking into the garage with the wireless
> phone...

My home is what I consider "medium large" -- 3,800 sf under air and almost 3,000 sf non-AC space.  I have two sets of wireless
phones.  The business phones are from Sony.  They work everywhere except out by the mailbox (50 feet from the front of the garage).
My wife's personal line is another brand.  It works well in 3/4 of the house, poorly in the rest and not at all outside.

I just ordered some Z-Wave components to test in my house.  I'll let you know how well they perform.  FWIW, I spoke with Phil
Kingery today (many old timers here remember him as "Uncle Phil", an avid HA enthusiast).  He works for ACT marketing the Z-Wave.  I
asked what were the larges residential Z-Wave apps he knew of.  He said they have a California single family residence with 220
nodes in it.  There's another in Indianapolis with 80-something nodes.  Both are exceptionally large homes.  According to Phil, both
systems work flawlessly.

> IMHO it doesn't make much sense to sink money into an RF based system...

If hard-wiring is an option, we agree.  Wired hardware is almost always preferable.  But if the choice is RF or X10 (or any of its
derivatives like Insteon), I'll go for RF.  BTW, I don't just denegrate Insteon because it has problems.  It's the company itself
which I sdon't like.  They have a nasty habit of letting end users beta test their products without telling them.

> If it were available at Lowes or HD and there'd be a no-questions-asked
> return policy, then maybe...

As you probably already know, I sell HA products.  After I test the stuff for a while I'll offer it for sale in my online store.  If
you decide you'd like to test a few units let me know.  If they're problematic I'll take them back.

> Although it would still most likely be a
> waste of time ;-)

Perhaps.

> About 35 miles east of Sacramento, CA.
> Lots of houses here with foil-backed
> wool. It is still widely used, like on our
> roof six years ago. We have foil-backed
> fiber under a Decra metal roof...

Perhaps California is very different from Southern New England. In Florida we have concrete block walls and slab floors.  Roofs are
shingle, tile (like mine) or (rarely) metal.  Exterior walls are insulated but not very much.  Our walls are over a foot thick.  The
outside is concrete block with stucco.  Inside that is a 2" insulated space and then sheetrock.

> Same in Europe.

I haven't been there yet but I have a second home in Brazil.  Don't even ask about construction techniques down there. :^)

> When we insulated our attic we bought
> the "good stuff" which is foil backed. Yes,
> you could get cheap paper-backed but
> I've seen in other houses how that falls
> out of the rafters after a few years.

Ours is glass wool with a sheet of plastic.  Attics down here are shallow since roofs are not built for snow load.  There's almost
no usable space up there, except in the middle 10' or so of each wing.

> Then there is radiant heat. In our house
> some <censored> before us has cut off
> the pipes but it must have been marvelous:
> There is a 2" concrete mud bed over all
> the floors and lots of copper pipes in there.

I redid tyhe master bath in my CT home some years ago.  It had always been cold and I hate walking on cold tile in bare feet so I
installed radiant floor heating.  You're right.  It is wonderful!  In Florida I only need heat a few times a year but my wife
(tropical girl that she is) needs heat any time the outside air is below about 80ºF or so it seems.  :^)

> That is probably the reason why the
> reach of RF remotes from the downstairs room up is so poor.

It could very well be.

> Unnecessary cost? Sure. But there are
> still lots of homes going up around here
> that aren't the usual cookie-cutters.
> Where owners specify exactly what they
> want to have. One even built the whole
> thing himself, just him and his wife...

I have a lot of DIY clients who've built their own homes.  One couple I'll never forget.  He's a builder.  She's a policewoman.  On
her days off, even though she was pregnant, she helped in the construction.  She called with a question one day when she was eight
months along.  I asked what all the hammering noise was in the background.  "Oh, that's me.  I'm working while I talk on the phone."
I asked what she was doing.  "Laying shingles."  I have a picture which she sent of her and her husband with the newborn a month
later.  She's a really small person but that doesn't slow her down at all.

These folks built a 5,000+ sf home.  She did the HA system herself -- an ELK M1G with over 50 sensors plus six zones of HVAC
control.

> They've got the best wall insulation
> that money can buy.

Here we don't need insulation as much as physical strength to keep hurricanes and alligators out.

--

Regards,
Robert L Bass

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