ISY994i ZS Zigbee range is very poor

[LFMc]

I purchased an ISY994i ZS Pro IR to extend my home automation system to include smart meter monitoring via the Zigbee interface and to have the IR feature on the ISY. 

 

My current issue with this is the Zigbee range is way below expectations so I am looking for ways to extend the range to where I would like the ISY to be located. I have a long house perpendicular to the street with the garage in the front nearest the street and that is where my electrical service comes in and where the meter is located. It is standard brick and wood frame construction with no insulation in the exterior garage walls where the meter is located. 

 

The furthest I have been able to get a smart meter connection is inside the garage about 25 feet from the meter and that is an iffy connection. I have to have the ISY about 5+ feet above the floor to get a stable connection. It will not work on the other side of the interior wall where the garage is attached to the house. I don't want the ISY in the garage because of the heat in summer, the lack of network connections and it is an IR/Pro unit, so I assume the ISY needs to be near where I would use an IR remote, which is not in the garage. 

 

I tried a longer +9DB antenna and was able to move the ISY to the interior side of the same garage wall, but still way short of my room where I would like it to go. 

 

So I am looking for options. At this time the ISY and the meter are my only items on the Zigbee network. Solutions I am considering are:

 

1. Mounting a 3' yagi antenna on top of my media center cabinet pointing towards the meter. I think this has zero chance with the wife's decor. (-;

 

2. Put in a few more Zigbee devices to get things to mesh for the 80-100' through the house that I need to go. This is most likely scenario, so being a Zig-New-bee, I have some questions. 

 

A. I could buy a couple of repeaters, but they are pricey and end up taking up outlet and wall space. 

B. Buy some Zigbee items on Ebay and place them between the ISY and the smart meter. 

 

I know Zigbee is 100% wireless and creates a fully meshed network. But I assume the Zigbee devices can't be added to a "scene" with insteon devices on the ISY, correct?  What are the maximum hops a Zigbee signal will use?

 

Can I use most any Zigbee device to act as a repeater? Such as the Phillips Hue Bridge or the Samsung SmartThings? These items are cheap on Ebay. I would prefer to avoid Zigbee switches if I can't add them to scenes on the ISY. 

Are there any version compatibility issues to watch out for with Zigbee? 

 

Thanks ahead of time for any suggestions and feedback. 

 

--Leon

 

 

[Teken]

Hello Leon,

 

My understanding is the ZigBee profile being used is the energy aspect. Meaning what ever repeater you intend to purchase and use must support this profile.

 

As the Home Automation, Security, Energy profiles are distinct unlike X-10, Insteon, Z-Wave.

[KeviNH]

Are you in an area with heavy WiFi utilization? Zigbee channels (except channel 26) are readily stepped on by WiFi.

[LFMc]

Thanks for the quick replies. In response:

 

1. Wifi Networks. I would say yes. Using my scanner app I can see 8 or so routers. 3 are mine. None are in the immediate area of the Zigbee ISY. Isn't the Zigbee on ~2.4ghz? My scanner shows the channels in use, can I safely disable channels on the ISY dashboard advanced settings to get the Zigbee to avoid those channels in use? 

 

2. In regards to using a repeating device, are you saying that the repeating device must be the primary device registered with the meter company? I know they are using the UUID of the ISY Zigbee interface to register. Will that not pass through any routing Zigbee device? Hopefully this is not a 1:1 connection only.

 

--Leon

[Teken]

Thanks for the quick replies. In response:

 

1. Wifi Networks. I would say yes. Using my scanner app I can see 8 or so routers. 3 are mine. None are in the immediate area of the Zigbee ISY. Isn't the Zigbee on ~2.4ghz? My scanner shows the channels in use, can I safely disable channels on the ISY dashboard advanced settings to get the Zigbee to avoid those channels in use? 

 

2. In regards to using a repeating device, are you saying that the repeating device must be the primary device registered with the meter company? I know they are using the UUID of the ISY Zigbee interface to register. Will that not pass through any routing Zigbee device? Hopefully this is not a 1:1 connection only.

 

--Leon

 

Hello Leon,

 

As far as I am aware the connection is secure and as you noted its linked to the ISY. Perhaps Michel can advise whether or not a standard repeater will help bridge the signal.

 

I find the whole separate ZigBee profiles extremely stupid as it make things very complex to integrate. My suggestion is just use real world trial and error to guide you.

 

Go buy the cheapest ZigBee repeater you can find that is local to you so you can return it if it doesn't work. Install it and see what happens as all the guessing you and I are doing won't let you know until you try.

 

Keep us all in the loop as to what you see . . . 

 

NOTE: I would also try selecting different channels to see for sure. There is also a signal out put level in (dB) not sure if your unit allows this to be changed?

Edited February 22, 2016 by Teken

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Leon,

 

As Teken correctly pointed out, you will need to purchase SEP repeaters and they are expensive.

 

KevinNH is also correct. Can you please check the channel in the Dashboard (under summary)?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[LFMc]

 My suggestion is just use real world trial and error to guide you.

 

 

Thanks again. This whole process of using the ISY for my smart meter connection feels like trial and error. Thank goodness Michael has been there the whole way helping out and answering questions. So maybe he can shed some light on the routing issue also.

 

I am so impressed with UDI and their willingness to work with you. I just didn't expect that the Oncor service area was so different on the meter reporting info. I do intend to write up my experiences as soon as I can feel I finally resolved the major issues. One being is the code for the My Electricity portlet is 'frozen' awaiting approval from another agency. Something Michael has been so gracious to try and work around to help me get everything reporting correctly for the Oncor data stream. At this time I think I am the unofficial Oncor beta tester for Texas. (-:

 

--Leon

[LFMc]

Hi Leon,

 

As Teken correctly pointed out, you will need to purchase SEP repeaters and they are expensive.

 

KevinNH is also correct. Can you please check the channel in the Dashboard (under summary)?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

Thanks Michael,

 

So repeaters and not devices?   

 

Does the Smartenet 5010S qualify as a repeater? They call it a range extender. http://smartenit.com/product/zbre/

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Leon,

 

Repeaters must be Smart Energy profile certified. So, the link to SmartenIt will definitely NOT work.

 

Do you have any other devices that talk to your meter?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[LFMc]

No, nothing else and the ISY is my only Zigbee device.

[LFMc]

KevinNH is also correct. Can you please check the channel in the Dashboard (under summary)?

 

The Summary section doesn't have the RF channel showing that I can find.  I see that listed in the network section at the top. It says: Joined Securely | 7E73 | A500590000800000 | 21  Would this be channel 21 that is being used? 

 

My wifi scanner only shows active 2.4Ghz channels up to channel 13. So I do not see the Zigbee devices on the scanner to verify this. 

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Leon,

 

Correct, the channel is 21. I do not think channel is an issue. I think the major issue is the wall between your meter (outside) and ISY. What you can do is to get a coax cable (not too long) and bring the antenna closer to the meter. Please note that you do need a 2.4Ghz antenna (you can use the antenna that comes with ISY).

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[LFMc]

Hi Leon,

 

Correct, the channel is 21. I do not think channel is an issue. I think the major issue is the wall between your meter (outside) and ISY. What you can do is to get a coax cable (not to long) and bring the antenna closer to the meter. Please note that you do need a 2.4Ghz antenna (you can use the antenna that comes with ISY).

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

It seems that I would need a 60-75' cable to reach the garage.

 

I contacted SmartenIt and they have a specific Zigbee SEP range extender for $60, so I may try that instead of the long cable which would obviously need an amplifier. http://smartenit.com/product/zoe-re/  They also have Zigbee SEP power switching modules that act as SEP relays for about the same price. Maybe I could hook one up to my toaster oven and get a discount on my electric bill. :-9

 

I think I will try the relay approach for now. I will let you know how it works. 

 

--Leon

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Leon,

 

The range extender is a good idea (if they have it). The load controller might not be since:

1. It depends on the meter sending DRLC events

2. ISY cannot do anything with it

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[Teken]

Leon,

 

Keep us all in the loop as I am sure your findings will help out many others who may encounter poor RF reception in the future. 

[LFMc]

Thanks for saving me time and frustration on the power controller Michael. 

 

Will do Teken.

 

--Leon

[LFMc]

I have received and installed the SmartenIT Zigbee SE 5010R smart energy range extender. The unit is very simple, one button and one LED, that's it. But, it works great. I more than doubled my distance between the ISY and the smart meter. For the initial install of the repeater, I had to have it fairly close to the meter. I went online to my smart meter account at texassmartmeter.com and told it to add my repeater. Within two minutes it was done. I tried the first time from a much further distance and it didn't connect, so I had to remove it from the permission list online and re-add it online one more time. Again, it was very simple. Then I could move the repeater much further away and it would reconnect to the meter with no issues. 

 

There is no obvious way to "add" the ISY to the repeater's HAN (home area network?) and know that it is joined. So I simply turned on "join" mode on the repeater and it stays open to joining for 4 minutes. In that 4 minute window, I rebooted the ISY to see if it would join. Afterwards I was able to increase the distance on the ISY from about 25' across the garage to about 75' from the meter across the house. 

 

Just to verify, I turned off the repeater and immediately the ISY disconnected from the meter. Upon turning the repeater back on, the ISY rejoined with the meter. 

 

So now if I put the ISY in my media cabinet behind a wood door, it loses connection fairly often to the meter. If I move it out of the cabinet a couple of feet, it is about 98% reliable. You can look at the REST meter log and see the very few times it misses some data and it really is no big deal. Inside the cabinet it will run for up to a day or so and then lose connection 100%. Then I  have to take it out of the cabinet and reboot the ISY to get it to resync with the meter. 

 

So, I need a few more feet of range to get it where I want to go. I have already added a +9Db ~18" antenna to the Zigbee interface on the ISY, so I don't have too many other options as the repeater is a sealed unit that looks just like a PLM, probably the same case. I am contacting SmartenIT tech support to see if they can tell me if there is anything else I can do to get more range out of it. I am guessing that they are using a hardwired fractal internal antenna. So it may have some directional differences based on it's orientation. I may just have to put the 9Db antenna on the end of a 3' coax and locate it outside the cabinet as well as try other placements for the repeater to get a better "line of sight" to the ISY.

 

I may also try the pie pan reflector trick. I have done this before on marginal wifi connections and it works well. Being the ISY only needs the Zigbee to transmit and receive in one direction (towards the repeater) I may put a 9" aluminum pie pan behind the antenna, pointed toward the repeater, to act as a signal reflector. It looks odd, but being inside the cabinet most would never see it. I once got a frying pan to do the same thing. (-;

 

Clearly the SmartenIT repeater has better range than the ISY ZS does, even when I added the longer antenna. In fact I was able to move the repeater from inside the garage to inside the house which helped quite a bit also. 

 

If you are needing the extra range on the ZS interface, I can highly recommend the SmartenIT 5010R ZOE-RE product so far. http://smartenit.com/product/zoe-re/ The current price is $59.99. 

 

It would be of great help to have some type of signal strength meter for the ISY Zigbee interface. Right now it is zero or one by looking the dashboard sync status. I guess I have found a work around with the REST meter log error rate, but still that is only better than nothing. To really trouble shoot the ZS interface connection to the meter, some real time signal strength feedback would have been immensely helpful, even if it was as simple as 5 bars like a cell phone connection. 

 

Thanks,

 

--Leon

Edited March 9, 2016 by LFMc

[Teken]

I have received and installed the SmartenIT Zigbee SE 5010R smart energy range extender. The unit is very simple, one button and one LED, that's it. But, it works great. I more than doubled my distance between the ISY and the smart meter. For the initial install of the repeater, I had to have it fairly close to the meter. I went online to my smart meter account at texassmartmeter.com and told it to add my repeater. Within two minutes it was done. I tried the first time from a much further distance and it didn't connect, so I had to remove it from the permission list online and re-add it online one more time. Again, it was very simple. Then I could move the repeater much further away and it would reconnect to the meter with no issues. 

 

There is no obvious way to "add" the ISY to the repeater's HAN (home area network?) and know that it is joined. So I simply turned on "join" mode on the repeater and it stays open to joining for 4 minutes. In that 4 minute window, I rebooted the ISY to see if it would join. Afterwards I was able to increase the distance on the ISY from about 25' across the garage to about 75' from the meter across the house. 

 

Just to verify, I turned off the repeater and immediately the ISY disconnected from the meter. Upon turning the repeater back on, the ISY rejoined with the meter. 

 

So now if I put the ISY in my media cabinet behind a wood door, it loses connection fairly often to the meter. If I move it out of the cabinet a couple of feet, it is about 98% reliable. You can look at the REST meter log and see the very few times it misses some data and it really is no big deal. Inside the cabinet it will run for up to a day or so and then lose connection 100%. Then I  have to take it out of the cabinet and reboot the ISY to get it to resync with the meter. 

 

So, I need a few more feet of range to get it where I want to go. I have already added a +9Db ~18" antenna to the Zigbee interface on the ISY, so I don't have too many other options as the repeater is a sealed unit that looks just like a PLM, probably the same case. I am contacting SmartenIT tech support to see if they can tell me if there is anything else I can do to get more range out of it. I am guessing that they are using a hardwired fractal internal antenna. So it may have some directional differences based on it's orientation. I may just have to put the 9Db antenna on the end of a 3' coax and locate it outside the cabinet as well as try other placements for the repeater to get a better "line of sight" to the ISY.

 

I may also try the pie pan reflector trick. I have done this before on marginal wifi connections and it works well. Being the ISY only needs the Zigbee to transmit and receive in one direction (towards the repeater) I may put a 9" aluminum pie pan behind the antenna, pointed toward the repeater, to act as a signal reflector. It looks odd, but being inside the cabinet most would never see it. I once got a frying pan to do the same thing. (-;

 

Clearly the SmartenIT repeater has better range than the ISY ZS does, even when I added the longer antenna. In fact I was able to move the repeater from inside the garage to inside the house which helped quite a bit also. 

 

If you are needing the extra range on the ZS interface, I can highly recommend the SmartenIT 5010R ZOE-RE product so far. http://smartenit.com/product/zoe-re/ The current price is $59.99. 

 

It would be of great help to have some type of signal strength meter for the ISY Zigbee interface. Right now it is zero or one by looking the dashboard sync status. I guess I have found a work around with the REST meter log error rate, but still that is only better than nothing. To really trouble shoot the ZS interface connection to the meter, some real time signal strength feedback would have been immensely helpful, even if it was as simple as 5 bars like a cell phone connection. 

 

Thanks,

 

--Leon

 

Hello Leon,

 

May I ask can't you just place the repeater closer to the ISY? Also have you considered using a extension cord to raise the height of the repeater?

 

Thank you so very much for the thorough follow up. 

[LFMc]

Teken,

 

That would be nice, but in the reality of home design, the locations you can put a wall wart like the repeater are discreet jumps and add to that the aesthetics of it, it further reduces the "hang it on the wall with an extension cord" possibilities. My wife has been so understanding of all the cables and extension cords laying all over the place. So, the next jump toward the ISY would be about 15' and land it right smack dab in the middle the buffet wall in the breakfast room. This would also add three more walls between the repeater and the meter and I know that it will never connect.  

 

Right now it is hanging about 7' off the floor on the wall on the end of an extension cord in the utility room, but it has a direct line of sight view of the ISY down the hall and through 3 rooms, as long as I don't close any doors.

 

So ultimately I really do need some more signal strength. But I am going to try several more positioning maneuvers and see what happens. My report may be a bit premature, but I felt I owed it to you guys to report in and let you know how it was going with the repeater. 

 

--Leon

[Teken]

Teken,

 

That would be nice, but in the reality of home design, the locations you can put a wall wart like the repeater are discreet jumps and add to that the aesthetics of it, it further reduces the "hang it on the wall with an extension cord" possibilities. My wife has been so understanding of all the cables and extension cords laying all over the place. So, the next jump toward the ISY would be about 15' and land it right smack dab in the middle the buffet wall in the breakfast room. This would also add three more walls between the repeater and the meter and I know that it will never connect.  

 

Right now it is hanging about 7' off the floor on the wall on the end of an extension cord in the utility room, but it has a direct line of sight view of the ISY down the hall and through 3 rooms, as long as I don't close any doors.

 

So ultimately I really do need some more signal strength. But I am going to try several more positioning maneuvers and see what happens. My report may be a bit premature, but I felt I owed it to you guys to report in and let you know how it was going with the repeater. 

 

--Leon

 

Hello Leon,

 

Understood about wall warts and aesthetics because I would be hard pressed to hang a huge white block up on the wall. No matter the use of wire mold to hide the wire trail.

 

I was just thinking if it was somewhere discreet where it really didn't matter. But then again I really couldn't see myself hanging some kind of random white block in my home even if I couldn't see it!

 

Ha . . .

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Leon,

 

The ZigBee radios inside ISY have been tested for over 500ft (almost a mile) at line of sight. Please note that a ZigBee repeater does not do the same thing as a ZigBee end point (i.e. it does not keep trying to contact the ESI/meter). The only things I can suggest are:

1. Open ISY and make sure the pigtail is actually connected to the ZigBee board

2. Check the channel (on ISY Dashboard). If close to WiFi range (20 and above), see if you can change your WiFi channel to some lower channels. If you also have 5Ghz WiFi router, you might want to turn off the 2.4

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[LFMc]

Just for grins, I put the ISY back in the media cabinet and put the aluminium flat to quasi-parabolic 10" reflector (a.k.a. a pie pan) behind the Zigbee antenna and the error rate (with the cabinet door closed) after 12 hours is less than 0.4% with no total disconnects as before. We'll give it a few more days and see how it goes before making it a permanent decision.  

 

--Leon

[LFMc]

Hi Leon,

 

The ZigBee radios inside ISY have been tested for over 500ft (almost a mile) at line of sight. Please note that a ZigBee repeater does not do the same thing as a ZigBee end point (i.e. it does not keep trying to contact the ESI/meter). The only things I can suggest are:

1. Open ISY and make sure the pigtail is actually connected to the ZigBee board

2. Check the channel (on ISY Dashboard). If close to WiFi range (20 and above), see if you can change your WiFi channel to some lower channels. If you also have 5Ghz WiFi router, you might want to turn off the 2.4

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

Thanks Michael,

 

I will check the ISY antenna internal connection when I have time.

 

All my (and my neighbors) 2.4Ghz Wifi signals are on channel 14 or lower, per the scanner I have on my laptop. I have no idea if these Wifi channel numbers correlate with Zigbee channel numbers or not. 

 

You previously mentioned that because my unit was using channel 21, that you didn't believe there would be interference with the 2.4Ghz wifi units.

 

--Leon

[LFMc]

Just an update. I have confirmed that in the 2.4Ghz range, the Zigbee channel numbers and WiFi channel numbers do not line up and are not the same. Zigbee's channel range 1-26 and WiFi's channel range 1-14(?) directly overlap each other.  Zigbee just breaks down their range into more channels than WiFi does. 

 

So in my case with the smartmeter using Zigbee channel 21, it directly overlaps WiFi devices using channel 11. 

 

Here is a good article explaining the difference and overlap. https://support.metageek.com/hc/en-us/articles/203845040-ZigBee-and-Wi-Fi-Coexistence.

 

Michael, is there a way to force the smart meter to use a different channel via the ISY settings or are we stuck unless the power supplier changes it? 

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Leon,

 

Unfortunately only the utilities can force the Smart Meter change channels.

 

With kind regards,

Michel