Best protocol for enviroment with obstacles?

Hey guys,
I’m trying to solve issue with connection for my sensors in cellar.
I would like to place door and motion sensor into cellar. I already tried to use z-wave for it, but without success. Cellar is not that far, but there are two walls (floors) and it looks like it’s too much for z-wave. I have one repeater in socket on balcony and another repeater(bulb) inside cellar. Can you recommend me another protocol/solution which will have better range than z-wave? I don’t have socket in cellar, only light, so I’m little bit limited. thanks.

Add another zwave device in between since zwave is mesh. Any zwave device you add becomes a repeater. And of course, there are actual zwave repeater devices. If you have issue with RF-based transmission going through your thick walls, have you considered PLC (communication over power line)?

Only line powered devices are repeaters, and last place where I can put repeater is balcony socket. There is already one qubino relay. Next line powered device is bulb in cellar. Because it’s apartment house, PLC is no way for me. I’m looking for some wireless technology. Maybe 433mhz will work better there? I think Z-wave is on the edge of it’s range, because I was able to include one sensor in cellar and also sometimes I can see even bulb as conneced. But I cannot control it and don’t receive any messages.

How good are you with DIY? My LoRa has 10mile direct line of sight range. It’s good even for building to building as long as you know how to build stuff. It’s also relatively cheap for what it can do. Use 915mhz.

The other thing you can try is like you said, 433mhz. But with your concrete walls that most likely has metal rebars/mesh, I wouldn’t get anything lower than 12V

I’m new in this home automatization, protocols and so, but if I have instructions, I think I’ll be able to build what I need. I’m building racing drones, so I have some soldering skills and knowlage about building DIY things. Are there somewhere some information about your LoRa? I think I’ll have to use different band, because I’m in europe.

They are becoming more and more popular so info should be readily available

How about something like an ESP8266 with batteries that you can mount just inside the door to the cellar, or maybe on the door itself. If it’s configured for deep sleep AA batteries shouldn’t need to be replaced too often and assuming you can get the signal that far the door shouldn’t be too much of a problem, unless it’s a really thick steel door or something like that.

There are lots of ways to address a problem like this.

My Raspberry and router is in the center of flat, so there is no wifi coverage for cellar. But easy to solve by adding another router next to balcony or moving raspberry there. Then it could work fine.
I prefer ready solutions like z-wave/zigbee sensors, because lack of time, but if there is no way to work in this conditions, I’m ok with DIY.
I have to dig deeper into ESP8266 and LoRa, because I don’t know which one will fit better and what I need to connect them to raspberry/openhab. I also like those DIY solutions, because I can use them also for my next things what I have in plan (weather station - thermometer, humidity, rain sensor, wind sensor).

Thanks for recommendations, guys!

all advice’s here are gold :slight_smile:

just dont do RF… at least not something cheap from ali… it cannot be trusted
i have some simple two code door sensors, and i cannot trust them… you need something with QOS, i think Wifi and AP cellar is the best way to go, also having good wifi is another benefit

maybe somthing like
//www.mysensors.org/

but again this is allot of work for just one issue…

Wifi will be fine, but issue is power for it. I have no plug in cellar, and as I saw, battery powered wifi sensors needs to change battery too often. So, I still don’t know. @luckymallari what about your LoRa? How often do you have to change batteries?

Mine runs on solar. Solar charges a LiPo battery.

There are several nice artcles in the web how to reduce the ESP8266 power consumption. Here is one

@pauli_anttila Thanks for article. Will do that.
@luckymallari good point. Maybe I can do the same there.
Thanks guys