Yuk. And a little yum.
I've moved the USB controller into the MBR, drilled through the subfloor. I was still having some mesh issues, both with CQC and with the ACT wireless controller.
So, I was looking to take steps to beef up the zWave mesh this weekend. I went to move a few light fixtures and put zWave switches in, and my dang 96yr old wiring started disintegrating in my hand. It's pretty well shielded in rubber/yarn, but the rubber is old and didn't take well to being moved several inches and stripped.
I could have worked slower and more carefully, but the wiring isn't in the right location anyhow, so i'm going to rip it all out and do it all "correctly". Well, i'll mount the gangbox and get a licensed electrician to do the HV work. And, as long as i'm calling him in, i'll re-route several switches.
So net net: I have a feeling it'll be a few more weeks before I can properly beef up the mesh in the weakest part of my network. I'm getting a few plug-in appliance modules, i may try and put those in an outlet nearby w/o anything actually plugged in as a stopgap measure.
One token good thing: The latest iteration of the CQC zWave driver has more error checking for bad environments like mine, so the setup as a whole is more stable. Obviously I'd prefer that my software not be forced to work around bad network architecture as it's driving up my latency/etc, but at least it's usable. I still think that for $1K, this will be a very useful learning experience.