Evohome connection faults observation

[chrisgare]

I've been a user of Evohome since the b/w version was first launched and have been very pleased with its capabilities since day one. I live in an old detached house with some solid walls and used all the original 8 zones. I never had any great problem with the system that I could not sort out with a little help from this forum.

I've always had the controller in my office on the ground floor in a non-centrally located corner of the house. I never had any connect/disconnect issues with any of the actuators or the DTS92 sensors I use in the main rooms. I've upgraded with each new version as it came out and now use all 12 zones. I've also been slowly upgrading to new style actuators by deleting zones and rebinding them. It all works well except for one annoying issue.

Since the last upgrade upgrade (though I can't tie it to that upgrade precisely) I was getting multiple errors with both sensors and actuators in multiple locations located in the furthest parts of the house. This sometimes got up to six a day, though connections were always remade and sometimes it took up to an hour.

As a test last week I move the controller to the hall which is centrally located in the house and I have not had a single fault since I did this. I guess the controller will now stay in the hall.

However I wonder why this is so? The office location for the controller in my office has been absolutely fine until recently so what has changed? Certainly not my house and I've not added any new wireless devices in the house. I am a radio amateur and use high power VHF amplifiers but they have never caused any issue with Evohome. It makes me think that receiver sensitivities have been reduced for some reason?

Chris

[paulockenden]

Might it be coincidence? Could it be some other interference started at around the same time as the update? A new Band 20 4G mobile tower nearby, for example?

Or maybe it's a sign that the batteries in your HR92s are on their way out?

I'd have thought that if a firmware update had altered the sensitivity of the controller there would be lots of people complaining.

As a radio amateur, do you have some kind of scanner available? Can you look for noise around 868MHz ?

P.

[DanD]

Hi,

I've noticed that items placed near to the HR92s can also affect the signal. I kept on getting a communications error in one specifc room and discovered that it was simply a plastic zipped storage bag (the type that you might use to store clothes under a bed etc) had been draped over the HR92. The material didn't appear metallic, but it was enough to screen the signal from this device which was already marginal. Overall I find the wireless performance very reliable even though I have HR92s hidden behind substantial pieces of furniture. It does sound like something new was screening or interfering with the signal close to your controller.

There is the possibilty that a firmware update could have shortened the period after which a device is assumed lost and a communications error is reported. However, I agree with Paul that if this were the case I'd have expected more users to have reported problems.

Dan