I started setting up a Z-wave network a couple months ago when I moved into this new house. For the most part, things are working pretty well. But I have a node in the back yard that controls the yard lights; it's located in the pool pump area, behind a concrete wall, and the far edge of the property.

At first I couldn't reach that node at all, but then I stuck another module on one of the outside outlets on that side of the house. Then I was able to reach that remote node fairly reliably. But it was still a bit flaky, and for the past two days, I haven't been able to reach it at all. That means trudging out to turn the yard lights on and off by hand. WAF is low, and I'm not happy either. Moreover, we want to add Z-wave control of the pool pump as well, which would be in the same area, but that's going to require an extensive electrical refactoring — so we need to be sure it's going to actually work!

So! This is why I'm asking:

How can I best extend the range out to a remote node, when there are no outlets in between? Are there dedicated "relay" modules that have bigger antennas or more power? Or is there some sort of wired relay (the wire of which I suppose I could bury in the yard)?

(And sorry for the non-MySensors-specific question... but I've found this forum to be friendlier and more helpful on all topics than other Z-wave forums on the net!)

Over on the Vera forum, I asked about a combo keypad that could trigger a scene when the correct combination is entered. This would be handy to have outside your house, to do things like open the garage door, turn on the lights, adjust the thermostat, etc.

Surprisingly, this apparently doesn't exist. The common work-around is to use a normal combo-pad garage door opener, and then a sensor on the door itself to detect when it's been opened and do stuff. But this can't distinguish between somebody entering and somebody leaving, so it's far from ideal.

Seems like it would be pretty easy to do it once you have a MySensors setup — you could use something like this Touch Display Scene Controller, but perhaps replacing the touch display with a simple number pad. And then program it to trigger a scene when the combo is entered. You could even have several scenes that are triggered with different combos (one for family, one for guests?), or have it do something else (e.g. notify the owner) after too many failed attempts.

I don't have the time or ambition to do this at the moment; I have too many irons in the fire already... but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway. It would perhaps make a great project article.

Just to follow up, I tried out the Verde UI protocol, and it works great! I was able to throw together this little demo:

...and it is quite responsive, in both directions (flipping the wall switch quickly updates the display, and tapping the on-screen button quickly switches the light).

I like Verde much better now that I've discovered its web service API. Thank you @BartE!

Thanks for the info about the Vera protocol and delayed AJAX calls. That seems evil but functional.

I'm still not entirely convinced that Vera is actually saving me much at that point; I find it extremely fiddly (when not outright buggy) to work with, and from looking over the OpenZWave API, that looks refreshingly straightforward.

But yes, @BartE, this would mean I dedicate a machine to being the ZWave (as well as thin client) server. I have several older Mac Minis lying around, as well as several more Raspberry Pis, any of which ought to be up to the job. They (plus an Aeon Zstick) would simply replace the Vera in my setup.

But I come here looking for advice, and I hear what you're saying, so I will be patient and give the Vera UI protocol an honest try. It may indeed save me a lot of time not having to write the server (and there's certainly appeal in having other controller apps available whenever mine is down for maintenance).

Since the Zstick is already on order, I will probably also play around a bit with Domoticz and OpenZWave... in a month or two I guess I'll have a good idea which is the path of least pain!

I doubt a web-based interface could be as responsive as I like; the whole basis of HTTP is that the server knows nothing of the clients, but only responds to requests. That means the clients would have to poll very frequently in order to find out if anything has changed. That's why I'm planning a more terminal-style persistent connection; when something happens, the server can then simply update all the clients immediately.

OK, thanks to you kind folks, I no longer consider myself a complete Z-wave newbie; I have a small network which has been functioning properly for days now. Now I'm ready to get serious about the long-term plan, and I'm looking for a bit more advice.

Our goal is to have an LCARS-style UI, complete with an interactive floor plan of our home, available on our phones and iPads as well as at several wall-mounted tablets around the house. These should be responsive in the sense that when somebody flips a (smart) switch, the displays update immediately. (Things like temperature and humidity can be polled less frequently.)

I don't believe such a UI is available off-the-shelf, so I'm planning to write it. I'm a software engineer by trade, so that part doesn't worry me. Each of the displays will be a thin client, told by a central server to display various images and text at various points at the screen, and which of these should be interactive, and they will call back to the server when the user taps something. (I'm glossing over details here but that gives the general idea.)

So, now we come to the question:

Should I plan on keeping some off-the-shelf controller, like Vera or Domoticz, in between my central LCARS server and the Z-wave network? Or should I just use the OpenZWave library with an Aeon Zstick to speak to the Z-wave devices directly?

I'm trying to resist reinventing the nail here as much as I can... but my intuition is that figuring out how to interface with some off-the-shelf controller, and especially to get immediate notification when something changes, is likely to be as much work as just writing my own controller software with OpenZWave. And given the huge pile of code I'm going to have to write to manage my fancy UI, the actual Z-wave part of it seems fairly minor in either case.

But there are folks here with far more experience in this stuff than me... what do you think?

Thanks,
Joe

Thanks, @Sparkman. I hadn't heard of DSC boards before, but I found this. Does indeed look promising.

And that Vera interfacing document you linked to looks pretty clear.

So, this is not a simple project... it's a pretty major retrofit, in fact. But it's doable! And knowing that is enough to keep me going.

OK, some hunting turned up the enclosure in the coat closet. This looks very promising indeed — I can see that all the sensor wires come to here. This suggests that they are indeed wired through the walls, which is fantastic (no batteries, no radio!), and far more trouble than I would have gone to!

It also means that I should be able to tap into them all in this one place, if I can figure out how to do it. Worst case, I guess I could gut the system completely, and just use the wiring to the sensors with my own electronics. Not sure how my spouse and insurance company would feel about that, though. They may prefer I keep the ability to call the alarm company and reactivate the service if we decide to do that.

And here's the control panel.

Note that I couldn't find a serial or ethernet port, or any other sort of data port, on any of this. I suspect it's a pretty old system — possibly as old as the house (mid-80s).

Thoughts? (And by the way, you guys are awesome!)

The previous owners of my house used a Protection One security system. While the service has been discontinued, the wall unit is still there, with a little LED that goes out when any window or door is open. Every window and door appears to have a magnetic reed switch, neatly installed into the frame and painted over, so they are nearly invisible.

I would very much like to get access to that sensor data for my HA system. I don't much care about monitored service, but with all the sensors so neatly installed, it'd be a colossal waste not to use them.

But I have no idea whether these sensors are wired through the walls, or some sort of wireless system. I've tried searching for the details, but my google-fu is not strong enough. Any ideas how I would go about figuring out how these sensors get power and communicate, and tapping into it (perhaps via MySensors hardware?) for my own purposes?

@Dwalt you may be right... I tested with some other Vera remote apps, and was still getting 10-20 seconds response time for my switch, so I tried rebooting the Vera unit. Now it is near-instantaneous.

So, maybe that's something I just have to do now and then. As long as it's not too frequent (and maybe only after installing new devices), I can live with that.