Most of the devices in my ZHA world are battery-powered (since I’m still a chicken and have not moved all my numerous Hue bulbs over to my ZHA/Conbee setup!) .
I was thinking I’d like two or three mains-powered devices simply to improve the mesh. They don’t actually need to do anything else, particularly, except not take up too much space. Are there any smart plugs or similarly small and cheap devices that work well as routers? I don’t need any more lightbulbs!
moving your hue bulbs over would add those additional routers
Ah yes, I know, especially since I have about 30 of them! It would be fabulous.
But the Hue system has been exceedingly reliable for many many years, and I can tell my wife how to power cycle the hub if anything should go wrong while I’m away. (Never needed it yet). I’m more nervous about what she would have to do if my HA box had an SSD failure, say :-).
Yeah the hue bulbs do make good routers
Maybe try migrating some of them that you could risk
Agreed just migrate a small number of your existing Hue bulbs over - ones that aren’t critical such as a table lamp or where a room has multiple Hue bulbs. This is exactly what I did.
Actually, that’s a good idea… I could start with the ones in my study 
If you have an IKEA nearby, they have pretty cheap signal repeaters. They also have Zigbee smart plugs that act as repeaters (and are a bit cheaper than the dedicated repeaters) but are much larger. I have one of the repeaters. Seems to be working well.
Repeaters.
Ah - that looks perfect - thanks!
Here’s the link to the UK version:
Will get a couple of those.
I read in another post that having your Hue bulbs and other (non-lighting) zigbee devices on the same mesh is not a good idea, as the ZLL devices do not make good routers for a network with ZHA devices on it, due to there not being 100% compatibility between the 2 zigbee types. Is this still the case?
i have hue bulbs and other device in same zigbee mess without any issues
I could use some help here.
I bought a couple of these in the hope that I could extend my network around the house. Unfortunately, my server is in the office which is at one end of the house (and it’s a rackmount with VMs so it’s not exactly mobile) The problem I’m having is that I couldn’t get Xiaomi or Smarthings devices to connect to it. So far, I’ve only managed to get IKEA items to connect ( … go figure).
Has anyone had any success getting Xiaomi or Smarthings devices to connect to a TRÅDFRI repeater? If so, did you need to do anything special?
And one other question about repeaters … is the network meant to be dynamic or do you need to pair devices with specific routers/repeaters?
I have a few TRADFRI smart plugs which act as repeaters. They play very nicely with other devices, including SmartThings and some cheap Chinese no-name-brand types. If I had an IKEA nearby I’d have a lot more of them, but $10 shipping for one item puts them at a disadvantage.
My understanding is the Zigbee mesh is dynamic and self-configuring. That’s been my experience so far. I’ve heard tales of waiting hours or days for new devices to find their place in the mesh, but yesterday I plugged in a new no-name smart plug in one location, ZHA detected it, and I moved it to an outdoor shed. I could control it immediately, and by the time I got back in to check the ZHA visualization page, it looked like it found multiple other repeaters.