I’m in an urban environment where I’m surrounded by people using crappy ISP-supplied routers set to broadcast 2.4 GHz at maximum power.
Personally I use a Ubiquiti U6-Pro with bandwidth steering to 5 GHz because the 2.4 GHz side is just trash (even with nightly channel optimization). I’d love to simply shut off 2.4 GHz but a lot of IoT insists on using it (god knows why).
As far as the Z-Wave controller, it’s an Aeotec 5th generation Z-Stick but no, I’m not using a USB extension. I’m in a tiny apartment with the Raspberry Pi 4 it’s plugged into in the middle of the apartment. I’ve only got four sensors using Z-Wave but it’s always been horribly unreliable.
For what it’s worth, about once per year the Philips hue lights just fall off and I end up factory resetting those too (I always mistakenly try to change the Zigbee channel when they’ve already disappeared).
I really don’t understand how it’s just me though. One MultiSensor 7 completely fell off the network, requiring a factory reset. After factory resetting supposedly I’m supposed to tap the button to get a solid yellow for inclusion, but after two factory resets tapping it once is a solid green.
It really feels like this is just garbage, backward technology.