Replaced Z-Wave 300 board with 500 board - should range be better?

[telljcl]

Seems slightly worse or at best the same to me. Hoping for an improvement, but it's pretty close anyway.

I didn't realize there was only an internal antenna on the new board - maybe that's part of it as I was using the external antenna previously.

Anyway, it seems to work, but I see discussions about network paths and hops and neighbors etc..., how do I go about looking at the communication paths through the Z-Wave network?

Thanks!

 

[lilyoyo1]

Range improvement depends on what devices you have as well as environment. 

[telljcl]

1 hour ago, lilyoyo1 said:

Range improvement depends on what devices you have as well as environment. 

 

Of course - just comparing the one z-wave device I have currently enrolled to the same w/ new card installed. No other variables as far as I know.

Also wanted to give others a heads up that if you have your ISY in a wall network / alarm box you should probably keep your old card w/ external antenna connection.

I can't put mine in the enclosure now, but I have an easy spot right next to it so it isn't a problem for me, but could be a factor for others.

Although I can't really find out what the new card will do that the old one can't (aside from supposedly being z-wave plus, but not sure what that is going to actually do in practical terms) it seems to function the same so far. Will test with the lock when I get a chance.

I read in another thread about having to put a range extender in "secure mode" when adding the device if you want to use locks with it, even though there was no mention of secure mode in the devices thin manual. Hopefully I can figure out the mystery of z-wave secure, not secure, etc... and make the lock work...

 

 

[Techman]

12 hours ago, telljcl said:

Seems slightly worse or at best the same to me. Hoping for an improvement, but it's pretty close anyway.

I didn't realize there was only an internal antenna on the new board - maybe that's part of it as I was using the external antenna previously.

Anyway, it seems to work, but I see discussions about network paths and hops and neighbors etc..., how do I go about looking at the communication paths through the Z-Wave network?

Thanks!

 

The Zwave 500 series chip has the following improvements over the 300 series chip:

• 50% improvement in battery life
• 67% improvement in range
• 250% more bandwidth
• Three RF channels for improved noise immunity and higher bandwidth
• New Plug-n-Play Network-wide Inclusion feature
• Improved self-healing and fault tolerance with Explorer Frame feature
• Standardized method for Over the Air firmware updates (OTA)
• Improved product information capture for product certification database

 

[kohai]

On another thread about the 500 chip and range, Michel suggested the best orientation when attaching it to the wall.  I can't remember which way he said.  

[telljcl]

2 minutes ago, Techman said:

The Zwave 500 series chip has the following improvements over the 300 series chip:

• 50% improvement in battery life
• 67% improvement in range
• 250% more bandwidth
• Three RF channels for improved noise immunity and higher bandwidth
• New Plug-n-Play Network-wide Inclusion feature
• Improved self-healing and fault tolerance with Explorer Frame feature
• Standardized method for Over the Air firmware updates (OTA)
• Improved product information capture for product certification database

 

Thanks - good to see all this in one place. I've seen some of this here and there.

But does the ISY 500 board deliver all this currently? I understand that in theory the new chipset is capable of these changes, but I'm still a little unclear how it all shakes out in actual, practical use with other devices in its (presumably) beta state.

 

 

[simplextech]

3 minutes ago, telljcl said:

But does the ISY 500 board deliver all this currently? I understand that in theory the new chipset is capable of these changes, but I'm still a little unclear how it all shakes out in actual, practical use with other devices in its (presumably) beta state.

The ISY z-wave card may be in "beta" state.  Z-Wave Plus and the 500 series chip has been out and in production use for several years and in fact the 700 series chip is the now current version and will probably be hitting devices towards the end of this year.  

All of the improvements/features listed before are inherent to the chip.  As mentioned as well you won't get a lot of the benefits if you have older non z-wave plus end devices as they won't support the improvements.

[Bumbershoot]

14 minutes ago, kohai said:

On another thread about the 500 chip and range, Michel suggested the best orientation when attaching it to the wall.  I can't remember which way he said.  

Yep, here's the post.

 

 

[telljcl]

29 minutes ago, Bumbershoot said:

Yep, here's the post.

 

 

Thanks!

[telljcl]

33 minutes ago, simplextech said:

The ISY z-wave card may be in "beta" state.  Z-Wave Plus and the 500 series chip has been out and in production use for several years and in fact the 700 series chip is the now current version and will probably be hitting devices towards the end of this year.  

All of the improvements/features listed before are inherent to the chip.  As mentioned as well you won't get a lot of the benefits if you have older non z-wave plus end devices as they won't support the improvements.

The few devices I've bought to get the signal to the lock, and the lock itself, are all z-wave plus units, so hopefully will benefit from some of the newer improvements.

Thanks for clarifying.