Aeotec Z-Wave Extender

Fills the gaps in a Z-Wave network. The Aeotec Range Extender 6 plugs into a wall socket and sits between your hub and the devices that are too far away to answer reliably. It listens for the commands and reports moving around the network, catches the weak ones, and repeats them on at full strength.

• What an Aeotec Range Extender actually fixes
• Where to put it, which is the whole trick
• Why battery devices cannot do this job
• It does not block the next socket
• What it needs

What an Aeotec Range Extender actually fixes

The device that works sometimes. A switch at the end of a corridor that answers on the third try, a sensor in an outbuilding that drops off the network for a day and comes back, a module behind a thick wall that reports late. Those are not faulty devices, they are devices at the edge of the radio range, and replacing them changes nothing. Putting a repeater between them and the hub does.

Where to put it, which is the whole trick

Roughly halfway between the hub and the problem device, in a socket, with as few walls as possible on each leg of that path. Not next to the hub, which helps nothing, and not next to the device, which is usually too far from the hub to be heard in the first place. Move it one socket at a time and test; halfway is a starting point, not a rule.

Why battery devices cannot do this job

A Z-Wave network is a mesh, and every mains powered device on it repeats for the others. Battery sensors do not, because listening constantly would flatten them. So a house full of battery sensors and very few mains devices has a mesh with almost nothing holding it together, and this is the cheapest way to add a strong repeater exactly where the map is thin.

It does not block the next socket

It is deliberately small, so on a double outlet the second socket stays usable. That matters because the right position for a repeater is often a socket that is already doing something, and a fat adapter would force a choice between the two.

What it needs

An existing Z-Wave hub or controller; this extends a network, it does not create one. It is Z-Wave Plus, runs on 230 V and takes a Type G plug.

If you have no controller yet, ours are the Fibaro Home Center Lite, the Fibaro Home Center 2 and the Homey Pro, or build your own with the Aeotec Z-Stick. On Zigbee rather than Z-Wave, the equivalent is our Zigbee repeater. The full Aeotec catalogue is at aeotec.com.