@vnastis If you are in the same building then recommend buying a few “known great” dedicated Zigbee Router products and place them strategically as Zigbee repeaters/extenders, even wall-to-wall if needed. It should be possible to get your your Zigbee signal into your basements by using many more (and better) Zigbee Router devices.
If you want to get the best setup then the best AND most cost-effective Zigbee Router that money can buy today is just to convert a few of ITead’s “Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus V2” (model “ZBDongle-E” based on Silicon Labs EFR32MG21) into dedicated Zigbee signal repeater / Zigbee range extenders by flashing them with Zigbee Router firmware and powering them with a simply USB-chargers. While maybe not the prettiest solution to look at, if you make sure they are permanently powered then joining/pairing three or more to your Zigbee network and spreading them around in your home will create an extremely stable backbone in your Zigbee network.
- https://github.com/itead/Sonoff_Zigbee_Dongle_Firmware/tree/master/Dongle-E/Router
- https://github.com/xsp1989/zigbeeFirmware/tree/master/firmware/Zigbee3.0_Dongle-NoSigned/RouterForDongle
That is, make yourself some semi-DIY variant by flashing the correct Zigbee Router firmware to Zigbee Coordinator USB dongles and then using them as stand-alone Zigbee Signal Repeater devices in USB-chargers for power. While the ZBDongle-E is best you can use either the Sonoff ZBDongle-E (EFR32MG21 based) or the Sonoff ZBDongle-P (CC2652P) work great as dedicated stand-alone Zigbee Signal Repeaters with recommended firmware.
If you want something that works good out-of-the-box the “IKEA Tradfri Signal Repeater ” and “Aeotec Range Extender Zi ” are products that work very well out-of-the-box, but not “great” as those semi-DIY variants detailed above.
Additional tips:
- Zigbee uses mesh networking and depends on having many “Zigbee Router” devices to extend range and coverage
- Recommendation is to add additional mains-powered Zigbee devices known to be good Zigbee Router devices
- Note that not all mains-powered devices have firmware that makes them act as a Zigbee Router device
- Some brands/models of Zigbee Router devices are known to only work well with the same brand of devices
For more best practice tips also read and follow this → Zigbee network optimization: a how-to guide for avoiding radio frequency interference + adding Zigbee Router devices (repeaters/extenders) to get a stable Zigbee network mesh with best possible range and coverage by fully utilizing Zigbee mesh networking