Plugwise network range

[jrkalf]

I have 12 Circles and today I relocated the Circle+ from the south side to the north side of the house, which means 16 meters in relocation. I guess I must have meshed - eh messed up some routes by doing that, but the network was up and running in no-time; all circles (except 1) were online just as fast as normal, after a complete powerdown of everything. The Circle that took a bit more time to find its way, was back online after half an hour or so.
So in my case it all works very well. Just like my homebrew Zigbee network; the self-healing nature of Zigbee works great (here).

Me like that idea. We need to talk on the 24th

[structor]

I am in doubt wether or net to buy a set of circles. I want to use some of them to replace my kika switches. Those will be located in my living room. I also want to track the energy consumption of the washingmachine and dryer, which are situated on my 2nd floor. If I buy a set of 8, can I expect a stable network (given the fact that my house is concrete with a lot of reinforcement steel). If i place one or two switches on the second floor will that be sufficient to bridge the 'bad' range.

[blb]

structor,

I did start with a more or less comparable setup, basic set with most circles on the ground floor and 3 on the 2nd floor. My house has wooden floors and the network was not stable at all. Most of the time 1 circle on the 2nd floor was connected (right above the circle+ and the stick on the ground floor), but my washing machine and dryer, in a corner of the 2nd floor with the wall-outlets more or less behind the washing machine where not connected.

[structor]

So basically a plugwise setup spanning multiple floors you need at least 20 nodes... Ouch that will be an expensive solution. Perhaps I should look into a z-wave alternative...

[wwolkers]

I've just got the basic kit, with 9 plugs in it, and it all works fine here, over 3 floors, solid reinforced concrete of 20cm per floor.
So you don't need loads of plugs to have a stable setup, probably other things are interfering.

[jheerink]

The more plugs ,the more stable network.
we use them in a school building.
U shaped, 2 floors, the "fingers' of the U are around 50mtrs long.

somewere cetral in a corner of the U we have the stick and circle+,
the whole buiding is covered with around 55 plugs, Most plugs are used to switch
on/off things, e have a few just sitting idel to enhance the range of the network.
distances covered are between 50cm and over 1o-12 mtrs per plug
with concrete floors in between.
it took a while to figure out what configuration works fine, but now we have
a pretty stable network.

My home network, old 30th home ,wooden floors etc, needs 6 plugs to cover from top to bottom.

[Phaeton]

Right now I use 18 circles to cover a 3 story home. The house is build in the 70's, so concrete is used for the floors. I started with my server (including the stick) and the circle+ on the first floor. including the circle+ I used 5 circles on two floors (first and second floor). Which worked fine. Then I bought 10 extra circles for the remaining floor and the server moved outside the livingroom to the ground floor. The network then became very unreliable. I moved the circle+ to the ground floor, this didn't help.

now I bought 3 extra circles to get a nice mesh network, but I still have problems with this setup, certain circles on the 2nd floor get lost easily. On the ground floor I use the least amount of (5) circles, with most space in between. On the first floor I use around 7 and there's only once in a while a small problem there. The main problems occour on my second floor, where I use 6 circles. Of which I use 2 just to keep the network distance low. On this floor I have most problems.

This weekend I will reset the lot and shuffle al the circles together. But I think it is caused by the fact that the stick & circle+ now on the edge of the mesh network.

do you guys have placed the circle+ as the nearest circle to the stick (like in the manual) or do you place it further in the network?

I'll share my findings this weekend when I have finished shuffeling and installing the network.

[jheerink]

just as info Since the server that also runs plugwise is in a steel cabinet I have the stick connecred through a usb extention cable It increased the reliability of the network a lot

[Phaeton]

Yesterday I tried to improve my network. I resetted all the circles, including circle+ and the stick. I removed the software and installed it again.

Then i installed the stick and moved the circle+ to the furthest from the stick place possible. This turned out to be the first ground. The middle of the house. After that i slowly added circles one by one. And I devided the circles evenly over the three floors. Adding one by one seems to work out fine. The network is stable and building in a couple of seconds.

[Phaeton]

After a couple of weeks with good stability, again the network is unstable. I haven't changed anything concerning plugwise. But it started over again. A couple of plugs appear and disappear randomly in my network. It are always the same plugs. Mostly on the first flor and second floor. But hat the strange part is, it aren't the plug on the border of the network, but the ones in the middle. The ones I expect to have the most 'neighbours' in the network. I now use 18 plugs, do I really need to enlarge my network to keep it stable?

Has anyone have some more suggestions? anyone had the experience where a stable network changes into an unstable one?

[Juande]

I'm experiencing same issue than you.

I had to reset completely my plug wise network and rebuilt from scratch, but nothing works. My Plugwise setup was solid rock until the moment I upgraded circles to last firmware version.

Now is a kind of nightmare!

[Freemann]

i just ordered a home basic set with 8 circles and 1 circle+.
Our home is 3 stories high and the floor are from concrete with reenforced steel.

Now i read this topic and see a lot of different stories. The most interesting posts are the lasts 2 posts about the firmware.
Are there more people experiencing these problems and has anyone contacting Plugwise about this symptoms/problems?

[T-Rex]

A couple of plugs appear and disappear randomly in my network. It are always the same plugs. [....] it aren't the plug on the border of the network, but the ones in the middle.

Now i read this topic and see a lot of different stories. The most interesting posts are the lasts 2 posts about the firmware.
Are there more people experiencing these problems

Lately I see someting similar, although I am not sure it is exectly the same. One of my cricles sometimes (once every couple of weeks) "disappears". I mean, in the source "rapportage" window there will be a question mark next to the circles name and there is no data added anymore into Source. It is the same circle every time. This circle is about 1 meter away from the stick, 1 meter away from the circle+ and surrounded by several plugs within 2-8 meters without obstructions. I think this behavior started after the last firmware update, but I am not 100% sure. Before that I had no connection problems since I started using Plugwise, a year ago.

Stopping and starting Source does not solve the problem. However, booting the computer does work, the circle is back. I did not try to remove the stick and plug it in the computer again. So in my case it looks like the particular circle is not 'readable' anymore by source. If booting the computer helps, is it more a local (computer/stick) problem instead of a network connection problem?

[Rene]

I am experiencing the same with 1 of my 30 circles. Once in a while a circle, always the same, is reported offline. This never happened with the previous firmware version.

[Phaeton]

Plugwise is really strange... Last couple of days the network is very stable, except one plug. And i didn't change anything.

I bought another 5 plugs from a forummember, which will bring my total to 23 plugs. I don't have much outlets left, so i hope this will bring stability.

I regret the update of the plugs. Because it looked the network was much more stable then.

Has someone had contact with plugwise? Maybe we should point them to this thread. I think it could help them and us.