Temperature sensors with good range

[firenacho]

Having trouble finding good information here on what temperature / humidity sensors have good range. I currently have one sensor:

http://www.clasohlson.com/no/Temperatur ... er/36-1797

And let me give you a spoiler; it sucks. Works in the same room, put it behind a wall and it struggles. any tips on sensors with good range? Is it possible to modify the antenna on some cheap ones etc ? Currently planning on buying this, but im not sure if its worth it: http://www.clasohlson.com/no/Oregon-THG ... r364288000

[tao]

How about putting a bigger antenna on your tellstick? That way you'll improve the range of all the sensors.

[firenacho]

Putting a bigger antenna on the tellstick does not solve this problem. A bigger antenna will make my sending range bigger, so its helps for turning on and off wall sockets and other devices that recieve signals from the Tellstick. However temperature sensors needs to send signals to the tellstick and to do this they need a good antenna.

Its like this with WLAN and mobiles too, a computer/mobile with crappy antenna cant send packets to the accesspoint, even if the accesspoint has the largest antenna in the world.

Im surprised i cannot find any topics about tempsensors with good range in this forum.

[janegils]

A bigger antenna (assuming it has higher gain) will help with reception too.

But an antenna with very high gain tends to be very directional, so it might not work so well in this application.

[firenacho]

I also have ordered some extra antennas for testing, as I want some more range for controlling the sockets. but currently i am content with the tellstick antenna. If I place a power socket beside my tempsensor, I can turn on and off the socket but i do not recieve data from the sensor.

[niclasf]

I promote my own project. http://www.telldus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3170

[firenacho]

I actually looked at that yesterday, seems cool. But right now i just want something a bit more simple. But since you are knowledgeable, is it easy to modify and boost antenna signals in most temperature sensors?

[niclasf]

For the esic product the easiest way to improve transmit range would be to exchange the existing transmitter module to a similar transmitter used in my project. They are dirt cheap at ebay.
This would be very simple and straight forward since there are three well marked pins clearly visible when opening up the sensor. GND, VDD and DATA. Just unsolder these three soldering points and the original transmitter can be removed.

[firenacho]

Good info, so in short i need to buy this: TX433 Velleman 433 MHz transmitter module

I see on ebay that some are 3 pins and some are 4 pins, what is the difference?
And also what is an ESIC ?

[niclasf]

The welleman transmitter will do.

In some of the transmitters the Antenna is the 4th pin. In other modules the Antenna point is just a soldering via (hole)

An ESIC is the sensor linked to in the first post that is known for it's short transmission range. The brand is ESIC but it is sometimes also called UPM I believe.

[perkabolo]

I opened up one of My ESIC's but cannot seem to find where to put a new transmitter. What am I missing? Where Should I look?

[tronde]

I opened up one of My ESIC's but cannot seem to find where to put a new transmitter. What am I missing? Where Should I look?

You should be able to figure out from this:

http://www.telldus.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 058#p13058

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GeTech-5-10pcs- ... 72218ace02

[Butch1956]

I am not an expert on this because I just entered the world of Telldus,but I think there may be something wrong with the sensor you have there. I have 3 of these sensors set up in my house and garage, and they all work just fine. 2 of them have 5 or 6 walls and two floors between them and my Tellstick Duo. Max range probably around 20 meters.
But I bought a new one yesterday, and I can't leave the room with it from where my Duo is sitting, before it fails. So something is wrong with this one -I'm returning it in exchange for a new one.
This is my experience with these sensors, some are faulty, that's for sure!

[firenacho]

After getting to play a bit more with my setup i found out what my server (Raspberry PI) do not deliver enough power to the tellstick so my range was extra bad. After buying a external powered USB hub i got better range. I have also bought an extra antenna (ordinary WLAN antenna from Jula.com), this has also boosted the antenna range. But I still have some strange problems with sensors suddenly stopping to report only to report as normal after 1 day or so. I dont really like that my system is so unreliable, will update with future findings.

[Nautilus]

After getting to play a bit more with my setup i found out what my server (Raspberry PI) do not deliver enough power to the tellstick so my range was extra bad. After buying a external powered USB hub i got better range. I have also bought an extra antenna (ordinary WLAN antenna from Jula.com), this has also boosted the antenna range. But I still have some strange problems with sensors suddenly stopping to report only to report as normal after 1 day or so. I dont really like that my system is so unreliable, will update with future findings.

I missed this thread and already started a new in General section but I seem to have the same problems. First I thought that the Esic sensors have something wrong with them but it is very weir that two of them stops updating during the exact same time intervals, e.g. today between 10:26-15:40 and 17:20-22:40 (EET). One kept updating during that time as well.
http://www.telldus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3968

Btw, what kind of antenna would provide a better range for transmitting signals from Telldus Net, can some one link a good one from eBay for example? Thanks!