Extending the Range of MySensor GateWay

[sghazagh]

Hi guys,
Have a question about Mysensors.
I have a Raspberry Pi 2 loading Domotics and GateWay uses native GPIO of Raspberry.
I also have a Node with in 5-7 meter distance which works fine.
My house is double story and I tried to test the access from far corner of second floor and have realized that the GateWay is not in range!

My questions are:

• What is the best solution to extend the range
• Can I use repeater to act to send and receive messages between GW and Nodes? Is that what the repeater does?
• I am using "Wemos D1 Mini Pro version" as my nodes and wanna use it as repeater or maybe WiFI Gateway, whatever is right.Can I do that to extend the broadcasting of messages for further distances from main GatwWay?
• The sample MySensors code does not compile if I enable the IP of GateWay to make the wifiGateway acts as client.
  Is there any guide help me to set it up if the Repeater/ESP8266 WiFiGateWay is the answer.

Many thanks for your help

[mfalkvidd]

@sghazagh https://www.mysensors.org/about/network and https://www.mysensors.org/download/sensor_api_20#create-repeating-nodes has information on how a MySensors network works. Start there and if there still are unanswered questions, just post them here.

The best solution depends on a lot of factors, but repeaters or switching to radios with longer range is often the easiest solution. See the range troubleshooting flowchart on https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/666/debug-faq-and-how-ask-for-help
Yes that is exactly what a repeater does
The wemos/esp8266 can be used as a wifi gateway or as a repeater with non-wifi radio.
The guide for buildning an esp8266 wifi gateway is at https://www.mysensors.org/build/esp8266_gateway

For the compilation - helping you is incredibly difficult without knowing what error message you got.

[sghazagh]

Hi,
Thanks for your answers.
This one made me curious : "The wemos/esp8266 can be used as a wifi gateway or as a repeater with non-wifi radio."

Do you mean for Wemos D1, I do not need to attach Radio and it still can be used as a Node?

[mfalkvidd]

@sghazagh yes. It can be a wifi gateway with a sensor (for example a temperature sensor) wired directly to it, without any nrf or rfm radio.