should work no problem from 20ft away. i use my q50 in my second floor office with the nevoconnect in the equipment rack located in my basement. higher up in the rack the better, away from AM/FM Tuners as well. and away from metal above the antenna like any duct work. nevo posts 100ft on their comparision chart but i've found 50ft to be the norm.

also - i've seen instances where the first time you associate the z-wave network, it doesn't take properly. just doing a factory reset on the z-wave and the nevoconnect and reloading your project and doing the associations can help.