Re: Wil I be able to use a Z-Wave controller

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

Frank Olson <Use-the-email-links@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Robert L Bass wrote:
>> A little more info on Z-Wave range.  According to Intermatic's Z-Wave FAQ:
>>
>> "Question: How far will a signal travel?"
>> "Answer: With an open field or no interference, the radio frequency
>> signal will travel 200 feet. The average distance that signal will
>> travel in a house is between 50 to 100 feet."
>
>Looks to me like you have no "real world experience" with Z-wave either.
>  Your criticism of Dave H, therefore is based on...  what??  Something
>you read in a book??  Something you "experienced" nine years ago??
>You're an asshole, Bass.

The FCC limits the radiated power in this band (908.42MHz) to 1mW (Europe
allows 25mW @ 868.42MHz, Canada tends to follow the FCC). What the FCC tries
to do is allow increased power at higher frequencies (it's much lower at the
310MHz used by X-10) to compensate for the fact that higher frequencies
don't travel as far and thus give approximately equal range across the
~200kHz-1GHz Part 15 spectrum. So 20-30' is what you can reasonably expect
from any Part 15 transmitter in these frequency bands and anyone who claims
significantly more is full of it. For example, Lutron RA says their nodes
need to be within 27' of each other.

I'll stick with my recommended 20-25' for reliability.

There are simple and legal things you can do on the receiving end to
increase range but there's no indication that Zensys, Zigbee, etc. do any of
these things as most quote very similar receiver sensitivity.