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Hi as you can see on the picture my Aeon-Z-stick is hanging out in the office not so nicely:).
It's connected through a 3 mtr long USB cable with a "Mac Mini" which is placed at the attic (along with a NAS, rfxcom LanTransceiver, Gigabit Shwich, Gigabit Wlan router).




Having the Z-stick like this is not really nice looking (for WAF reasons ) and is also not preferred for safety reasons as well (don't want to help burglars to much).
So I tried to get working with the stick straight into the MacMini placed at the attic. That's not working (might be because the RFXCOM and Wlan are to near?). Then I tried to move it a bit further away form the RFX and Wlan (also on the attic) did not help. Next I tried it with placing a spare z-wave Switch somewhere on the attic to improve the mesh network. Did not help a bit! Having it working with Homeseer I tried to optimise the network several times on a row but that did not help.
So, I ended up with a usb cable an dongle hanging out in the office (moving it closer to the wall or more against the roof, also meshes up the working).

So what did you do to have the Z-wave dongle working properly, without having it in a not so nice place like this?
Any ideas how to improve my set-up (preferably having it placed at the attic)?

Thanks.
Wiechert


My set-up: MacMini (Parallels VM, windows 7) HomeseerPro, RFXCOM Lan Transceiver, Aeon-labs Z Stick2

I use a usb-network server. This way i could place the stick in the middle of my house in a nice looking way.

Not perfect, 98% stable (usb server needs restart when network goes down), but an improvement compared to my first solution. Which was simmilair to your solution

i have got it in the cabinet around the fusebox (aka de meterkast). It's near the wlan and the plugwise usb stick and working without a glitch.
@Phaeton: why do you have it in the middle of the house, z-wave is supposed to build up its own mesh...

Bases on trial and error (homeseer has a nice tool to measure responce times) i decided to place it there.

Even though mesh works fine i noticed that the time to respons is better if i place it in the middle of my house. Especially for the 2nd floor.

Hi, Thanks for sharing your set-up. I still have the stick hanging out on the first floor as on the picture. Ideal would be having it on the attic which is just above this place. I have several z-wave devices nearby (one on the attic and few on the first floor, only 1 till 3 mtrs from the attic) so one might think the controller must be able to find the neighbours without any problem. But somehow it won't. Also as mentioned, at the place I have it hanging now (see picture), as I move it a bit up or more towards the wall, its also giving problems not reaching the devices.
On the other hand, I have a few devices downstairs and even further away outside in the garden, which are working very well (only from the place I use right now). Any other ideas or samples of solutions that helped improving the reach (from a similar spot?).

Thanks.

Try rotating the device in the X/Y and/or Z plane.
The used antenne is etched on the circuitboard and due to that not omnidirectional.

So which side is the best, the side with the blue light on it? I will give it a try after the Christmas. See if it helps.

Wiechert

My stick is hanging in the same way (sounds strange ) on the attic, this way my server is not interfering with the signals. I have used a usb network server in the past but it has died on me. I needed to restart the application at least one time a day . But after some time stopped working completely. Now i`m connecting all transceivers directly

I only have on usb to com port converter which is having issues. This one is connected to my OpenTherm gateway and once in a while i need to restart HomeSeer. (made an event for that ) In the past i borrowed a converter from which did not seem to have this issue. So i think it is prolific chipset related (old converter is use now) and need to find another one. Or make the gateway ethernet based

mrqnapper wrote:So which side is the best, the side with the blue light on it? I will give it a try after the Christmas. See if it helps.

Wiechert

Can't say that. It depends on the configuration of the walls in your house, location od iron in the walls/floor, the angle at wish the signal will travel trough the wall as that will make the wal 3-6 timies thicker, location of the receivers, reflection materials around and inside the house. To say it creudly so you have some idea here. The antenna is almost certain etched on the pcb and the pcb is flat in the casing. The radiation patron looks like a flower with short leaves and only 2 long leaves. These long leaves are mostly positioned above and below the pcb going at a 90 degree angle outward. Please google at [ antenna 868 mhz usb radiation patterns } to see some examples.
(Sry, i got motion sickness at the moment so i only have a few minutes screen time before througing up again.)

I am a nerd, hence i had to see, how it looked inside a couple of years ago.
Regards
Morten

@morten Great, what's the yellow thing. Did you attach it or is it also inside the stick?

mrqnapper wrote:@morten Great, what's the yellow thing. Did you attach it or is it also inside the stick?

Battery. The stick is also usable when it's not plugged into the USB port.

Yes a battery, and it is right at the opposite side of the Z-Wave module. Hence I don't think the led/button side of the stick is the good side.

According to me and as far as i can see it on your image the red line is the antenna

You are right, I think.

Over exposed image.