Review on 📡 Aeotec Range Extender 6 - Zwave Plus Repeater, Pack of 2: Ultimate Z-Wave Extenders for Enhanced Signal! by Jim Roberts

Incredibly expensive. Like all the rest of the HA-IoT junk. Do smart locks work? Unfortunately, having at least one is practically a requirement. Used on SmartThings v3 and Hubitat Elevation C-5. There are a million reviews for this product saying the same thing so I won't repeat myself. The product works. It does what the ad says. No, there is no obvious way to know if it works. You just have to believe that it is. No, obviously none of the hub manufacturers are interested in making these devices accessible to users. All you have to do is install the device correctly and know that it does what it is supposed to do. Yes, welcome to the world of technology. PFM :rolleyes: After a lot of research over the past 5 months it seems people are mainly using them for: smart door locks. Since that's the only reason I have 6, I'll focus on that. I have a large ranch with a partially unfinished basement. Three door locks are on opposite sides of the compass with the hub in the middle. The hub is in the basement, 2 locks on the first floor. Lots of concrete, glass, metal pipes and electrical noise from wiring. Problem: Totally unreliable behavior. Gross understatement. On SmartThings I had 90-95% reliable behavior. In Hubitat, that number has dropped to 20-30%. Whatever the hub, less than 100% is unacceptable. Would you accept being locked out of your house even if you tried to pick the door lock 5% of the time? No of course not. No matter which hub, everything didn't work. I bought two extension cords a few months ago. Read the many forum posts and documentation from Samsung and Hubitat. The vast majority of them can be reduced to blaming Samsung or Hubitat and their respective fanboys for the smart lock maker. Since my locks worked almost perfectly on SmartThings, I didn't want to gulp down the stuff Hubitat was digging up, and there's no way I would throw away nearly $1,000 worth of locks to spend even more on something they themselves will reject Guarantee 100% time work. So what did I take away from months of research? There is no way I want to call Hubitat tech support, I can guarantee that. But I've found 5 maybe 6 forum posts from people having EXACTLY THE SAME problems in EXACTLY the same order that may have stumbled upon a solution. I won't go into detail because it would fill pages. Short explanation: encryption and transmission. These are two things that z-wave plus locks use and in some cases are absolutely necessary to work properly. I've paired my locks in both unsecured and secure modes and I can definitely tell you that they performed worse in unsecured mode in both SmartThings and Hubitat. Transmission refers to the transfer of data from the hub to the lock and vice versa. AFAIKT uses absolutely nothing other than locks. do you really need it Yes. no May be. Depends on the. My SmartThings hub had no problems when installed near the locks. my habit. Half the time it barely worked and the rest of the time it broke. I have a solid, well-connected Z-Wave Plus network. The people on the hub and forum will tell you that this is "all you need". I'm here to tell you that this is complete nonsense. Move your hub closer to the locks they say. Serious? Why don't you just tell me to move the locks closer to the hub. Oh wait, I know I should just buy a smaller house. :rolleyes: In my experience, properly paired extenders are needed, in my opinion. Not just properly connected, but the right NUMBER of properly connected extensions. All those 30, 60, 120, 2 foot range statements? Also BS. Radio waves affect absolutely everything between the castle and the hub. It doesn't matter to me if the lock and hub are 10 feet apart as long as they are separated by 5 feet of concrete and rebar. What I did: I unplugged my two original power strips and plugged them back in - to make sure they were securely paired with the Hubitat hub (which I could never do with SmartThings v3, btw). I then placed them between the hub and the two problem locks - about halfway between the hub and the lock. My locks were already securely paired, so I didn't do anything to them (other than replacing the dead batteries in one). By the way, these are two different lock models. Then I ran the Z-Wave repair. A few times a week or so. MARVELOUS! This was enough to get two bans, probably up to 60%. Trust me, big jump! So I bought two more extension cords. Lather, rinse, repeat. This time I shifted the extensions so they were about 1/3 and 2/3 and the one closest to the lock was as close to the lock as possible. It turned out to be 10 inches for one and 6 feet for the other. Repair the Z-shaft again a few times over the course of about a week. More than a Z-Wave repair was probably not required as it was obvious that everything was working correctly. very soon after the initial recovery. I've since installed a fifth 3' from the third lock and haven't had any issues with any of the three locks since. why it's totally impossible, it doesn't work that way, no encryption is needed or even "bad" or that extenders are "totally unnecessary" nowadays because everything is a repeater and we just imagine things. I even stumbled across several posts stating that extenders are outdated, outdated, useless technology for now incredible amazing new technology that can do "everything". Yeah well my stuff is working now so I guess I'll keep using the old ruins and leave them in their hot new state. Important points: 6 handles encryption and transmission. Important! It is imperative that you ensure you securely plug in your locks and extension cords, no matter what others tell you. I have never repaired my locks after (re)installing 5 expanders, but DO NOT FORGET to run the Z-Wave repair. Experiment with the number of extensions and their placement. What works depends entirely on your environment. It can be 1 or 5 or. The distance of the first from the lock - theoretically on the front - should matter, and I'd still recommend placing the first as close to the lock as possible. However, in practice I still have a 10", 3" and 6" and all three locks work fine. I am definitely satisfied with the product. He makes my locks work. :) :)