After receiving the 2nd generation range extenders, I’m still not sure what the improvement are. It’s been said that it was to enhance the Z-wave devices, but I can’t seem to make a clear distinction on the enhancement.

After a while I started to think maybe they sent me the wrong range extender by mistake and it’s still the first generation. So I had to void the warranty and open them up to take a look inside for any changes.

As you can see I didn’t just open 1 but 4. This is to see if I can notice any difference between all the different batch codes that I have at home.

So from the left to right are 20W12, 24W12, 48W12, and 38W13. I’m assuming numbers before the W with lower numbers are earlier models while the higher ones are newer, and the 12 and 13 represent the year it was made.

I’ve found that batch 20W12 and 24W12 are the same and there is no difference between them. Changes were made in batch number 48W12. I noticed that the label for Z-Wave is “RevB-0” for the older model while the 48W12 would be labeled as “RevC-0”.

Older Range Extender with “RevB-0”

Newer Range Extender with “RevC-0”

The newest batch 38W13 also has the Z-wave label of “RevC-0” too.  There is however also one more additional change where I believe they are called electrolytic capacitor. 

Older Electrolytic Capacitor

Newer Electrolytic Capacitor

So it does look like there were two differences between the newest range extender and the earlier models. Now I’m wondering was I comparing the two range extenders which has the same Z-wave label of “RevC-0”. This would kind of explain why I don’t notice any differences. Also does the different electrolytic capacitor really have any effect?

Back to do more testing to see if I can figure out what the enhancement made for Z-Wave with these range extenders.