Code Name: Eagles Nest

Largest Z-Wave Encrypted Network

Background Info

One day our Integration Team (Smart Home San Diego) received a phone call from Vera Controls stating there was a customer who had been trying to get 33 Yale Real Living Z-Wave Dead Bolts working in a 16,000SQF home. Yikes!!! Unfortunately the home owner was sold all of these locks and a Vera3 by a locksmith who told them he would be able to get them all working together, but later abandoned the job. After Blake (our Z-Wave Guru) heard about this he had to go check it out. "It's not everyday that you get a Z-Wave test bed like this!" he said.

Initial Meeting

Blake and his team arrived and were greeted by the property owners assistant. Right off the bat they were informed that this has been an on going project for a year an a half. After the locksmith left, the home owners received mixed information from a series of sources on how to get the locks working. Unfortunately after numerous attempts from different Integrators there was little to no success.

Smart Home San Diego quickly found out the original goal of the home owner was to eliminate the need of going to each of the 33 doors to manually lock them at night or each time they left. The frustrated home owner had already been going in circles for the last year and at this point either wanted them working or out of the house all together. He didn't want to buy anything extra and didn't want to spend any more money, which Blake agreed with. After seeing the size and layout of the property the Smart Home Sand Diego Crew believed it would be a challenge they would all want to see through.

Game Plan

The materials that were allotted for this project were 35 Yale Real Living Z-Wave Deadbolts, 3 Vera3s and 26 Enerwave Z-Wave Receptacles. The project was broken into a 3 hub system (Pictured below). You can think of these as three separate 4,000sqf homes. Each hub would be responsible for 7-15 locks and 8-10 Enerwave Receptacles. Using these materials we decided the best locations for placement in respect to the home configuration. Below you can see outdated Blue Prints for the upper and lower floor. The green circles represent the Yale Z-Wave Dead Bolts. The yellow circles represent the Enerwave Receptacles and the grey circles show the Vera3s.

The Project was broken into 3 Days of work. Zone 1 (blue), Zone 2 (green), and then Zone 3 (purple). We figured if Zone 1 was able to work properly then there wasn't any reason why the other 2 zones wouldn't.

Installation

With all zones, the first thing we did was factory reset all Vera hubs. We made sure every move we made had a reliable back up because including locks can be a very time consuming process.

We first included all of the Enerwave Receptacles via Full Power Inclusion. Once we had a stable Z-Wave network we started patiently adding the locks. We noticed once we got into the 10-15 locks the inclusion process slowed down. Once everything was added, we ran a few tests, locking and unlocking individual doors with a 100% success rate. Once we left we ran a network optimization to make sure the Z-Wave Routing tables were properly made. After all Vera3 Hubs were configured and working properly we went ahead and bridged them together so the home owner could see the status from one application. Zone 1 is the Master controller and Zone 2 and 3 are slaves.

Out Come

Lets face it, this project had "Unknown Outcome" written all over it. Planning and collaborating with some of the Z-Wave Alliance members helped see this project through. A month after programming we got a call from the home owner about how the system was working exactly like it should and how they couldn't be happier. With that said this project was very rewarding!

The home owner took a leap of faith using Z-Wave but 1 1/2 years later home owners report that system is working perfectly. Instead of having to walk to each of the 33 locks every night to manually lock, they now just have to go around and change batteries every 6 to 8 months. We thank everyone involved to make this happen!