DAE get burned by cheap wireless zone expanders?

I used to think you could save money with those $40 wireless expanders from Amazon. Installed one in a Murphy, Texas home back in March and it dropped the signal every 45 minutes. The homeowner called me four times before I swapped it out for a Honeywell 5800RP and it has been solid for 6 months now. Has anyone else had better luck with the off-brand stuff or was I just unlucky?

2 comments

2 Comments

fionaa351mo ago

Gotta push back a little on calling that Honeywell a "wireless zone expander" in the same breath as the cheap ones. The 5800RP is a wireless receiver, not a zone expander - it ties into the panel's wired zone inputs. Different ballgame. Those cheap Amazon ones are basically just signal repeaters that rebroadcast whatever they hear, which is why they crap out so often when the environment changes. The Honeywell actually decodes and processes the signal at the panel side. So yeah, you weren't unlucky - you were trying to solve a problem with the wrong tool.

jason_stone1mo ago

lol yeah you nailed it @fionaa35, that "wireless zone expander" label on those cheap units is straight up misleading. I made the same mistake last year - bought one of those $30 Amazon repeaters thinking it would fix my range issues, and it worked for like two weeks then started randomly dropping sensors during the night. Swapped it out for a proper 5800RP and the difference was night and day. The Honeywell actually talks to the panel properly instead of just screaming whatever signal it hears into the void.