Mis fires after adding additional Access Points

[mzn50]

Hi all

 

I decided to add additional Access Point to my environment .. My home is approx 4000 sq ft.. And reading that.. only 2 AP may not be sufficient.. Wired thing is I noticed that a couple lights didn't fire..

 

Any history that AP may cause communication conflicts ?

 

Thank you

Matt

[ELA]

Hello Mzn50,

Each situation is different so I am only talking in generic terms that may or may not apply to you.

Each Insteon device added to a network "sucks power line signal" to some extent.

Thus when you add an access point to an area to enhance the RF coverage the Power line communications(PLC) may be degraded in that area.

 

If there were already marginal PLC in the area in question it might be a better option to replace an existing single band device with a dual band device.

[mzn50]

Thanks ELA..

 

Makes sense.. But every device I have is Dual Band.. Which is why it's odd.. I guess I will monitor and remove one Of the new APs at a time.. Just still find it odd..

 

Thanks !

[oberkc]

It was my understanding that access points repeat the signals over powerline and RF. Given this, I would have assumed that any degredation of the signal due to the presence of access points would be overcome by the fact that the signals were repeated at full strength. Perhaps there are exceptions depending on hop number or things like that.

 

My own experience includes nothing to suggest that additional access points can be anything other than good. But...I have only four. Other's experience, based on my reading from this forum, has sometimes been different.

[ELA]

What Insteon advertizes as being true is not always true in every install.

There are so many factors that can affect communications that it is my belief that collecting reliability data is critical to longer term success, once a network has exhibited issues.

 

Pick a couple of the nodes that are having issues and collect data on that node using the level 3 viewer. Then make a change and retest that node to help gauge improvements.