Re: HA Primer - Pos and cons of X-10, Z-wave, Insteon, UPB

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

mmikem32 <pinzen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>On Apr 28, 10:34 am, nob...@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston) wrote:
>> "Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >> If the controller is centrally located, 4 hops in every direction
>> >> can cover a home that is ~200 long by ~200 feet wide
>>
>> >That's nice if it's possible to centrally locate the controller.
>>
>> If you're the owner of this specious estate and want to walk around the
>> perimeter of your network while using a handheld remote to control it,
>> you'll find that you can only control 1/2 (or less) of the network from
>> anywhere on the perimeter as signals fall off the edge of the earth after 4
>> hops.
>
>The device was a plugin device.  I have the homeseer z-troller so it
>doesn't act as a hand held remote. but, I loaded homeseer on my
>laptop, connected the z-troller up and walked around the house setting
>off events. Every device worked from every location.  This took a bit
>of time to make sure that the all devices were working from each place
>I stopped.  Now...all devices may be working because I have so many
>devices in the house now.  But they do work.  So I am not really on
>board with all the negative talk about Z-wave.  It all has worked
>flawless for me from day one.

As I recall, you said your house was 2500 ft² on two levels not the 40,000
ft² on one level that Bass claims 4 hops will cover. Your test doesn't
address the issue in any way since no one has said 4 hops is inadequate with
the distances involved in your house.

Aside from mentioning the Lutron patent and the reference to the imaginary
40,000 ft² house which you quoted, the only statement I made about Z-Wave
was, "Z-Wave requires a minimal density of modules to assure coverage. This
plus their 4 hops max limits the physical size of a network although one
supplier now offers a system with 7 hops max." I don't see where that is
either negative or inaccurate unless you're claiming that your 16 device
system will work equally well in the imaginary 40,000 ft² house.