Since lamps are so easily shut off accidentally etc atm where I am, I’d prefer something else to act as routers, but I’m not sure what to use. The central is a little intel nuc with a sonoff antenna and I’d like to keep the extenders hidden, not visible and not stuck into powerplugs etc to keep those free and nicer looking. Are there tiny little boxes of extenders you could hide behind the power sockets in the wall and feed with 230V or so?
Sonoff ZbMini and the likes
Use zwave receptacles.
Use zigbee outlets or smart plugs. Outlets are now widely available so it is in my opinion better option than a plug. If you have light switches with a neutral wire it will act as a router too.
You can also try zigbee repeater. You can plug it in any usb port.
Something like this.
That is a bad example. These Tuya routers are know to blackhole non -Tuya devices if the network gets busy. Then this is a better example:
I wouldn’t know that. Just check my network map. It has connected tuya and non tuya devices on it both routers and end devices. My network doesnt depend on it. Its just one of 20 routers.