Does anyone have a suggestion for a good strong ZigBee repeater?
Note that Zigbee relies on a network mesh so using three or more lesser good Zigbee Router devices will generally be better than using just one great Zigbee Router device. Anyway, here are suggestions:
Good = “IKEA Trådfri Signal Repeater” or “AEOTEC Range Extender Zi”.
Great = Sonoff “ZBDongle-E” or “ZBDongle-P” - flash with Zigbee Router firmware & use USB-chargers.
Tip is to have at least three stable main-powered Zigbee Router devices that are always on.
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I have also had a good experience with the IKEA Tradfri repeaters.
I am using SONOFF as the main Zigbee coordinator. Can anther one of those be used as a repeater? Is different firmware required for this?
Yes, you have to flash them with router firmware.
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Think I’ll stick to the IKEA Tradfri. They are easy to set up and seem to work well with all my Zigbee devices
I use a lot of Hue & Tradfri outlets (about 10) spread around the house. Is this also a good way to improve the network? Or do you recommend to buy some additional dedicated repeaters?
I also notice that my lights (which are in the same network) also act as routers but they are connected to the smart outlets (and are inactive most of the time). Is this a problem?
If you have trouble with your zigbee network I would start by moving your smart bulbs off the outlets so that they have power all the time. Having smart bulbs turned on and off by a smart outlet seems a bit unnecessary.
Yes, becaue at one minute they are a router, and the next they disappear because they have no more power. Not all zigbee devices connected through it respond well to that, if they even can find a good router as an alternative. Dumb bulbs connected to smart outlets is fine, that could even be considered smart 
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll remove the lights from the smart outlets.
After reading many posts and advice I added Tradfri repeaters and a light bulb to my Sonoff Dongle-P ZHA setup.
I found that all my Tradfri devices go unavailable for 2 hours out of evry 4 hours. This is a regular cycle, and strangest of all, all the tradfri devices are unavailable at the same time !
I have found a setting which brings the unavailable time down to 10 minutes - but all are still going unavailable at the same time every 4 hours.
Are you using an extender cable to your dongle?
Yep. Because I was trying to reuse my old tower PC located in my study (in a corner of my rented apartment) I used a 3m USB cable to position the coordinator with line-of-sight to the repeater in the living room.
More detail is at All Tradfri signal repeaters go unavailable together, every 4 hours
My previously stable Tradfri repeaters have also started to randomly become unavailable in ZHA. One the repeaters is in the garden but the other is about 2 meters from my coordinater (Home Assistant Yellow). The external light is still on but the device shows as unavailable in ZHA. Has anyone else had and/or solved this issue?
I would suggest checking for changes in your neighbours wi-fi usage. Possibly someone near with a strong signal is streaming movies over the wi-fi channel that your zigbee is sharing ?
Im running several of the Tradfri repeaters, my setup is rock solid, I run Z2M on a Conbee II on channel 11 and ZHA on a Sonoff on Channel 20.
Im currently migrating devices slowly from Z2M to ZHA.
Z2M has 2 IKEA repeaters and about 45 devices (Old network)
ZHA has 1 IKEA repeater and about 10 devices (New network)
I also have 4 Unifi AP6 Commercial Wifi 6 Access points around my property and I never have Zigbee go down, its mainly why I like it so much, and Im pretty sure my Wifi setup is squashing everyone elses
The IKEA Repeaters are awesome for the money, I have nearly 255 signel on all of my devices except for the crappy Xiaomi gear as they will not utilise any repeaters, they will attach themselves to the coordinator and thats it.
I suggest if you are having issues with Zigbee dropping, you may want to look at changing the channel they are using, or shift the channel your Wifi is using, my Ubiquity gear scans for other channels and dynamically moves my AP’s channels around to avoid congestion.
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For what it’s worth, after over a year of using the IKEA signal repeater with no issues they have started to drop off my network and show as unavailable every week or so. This has also been occurring with my IKEA LED drivers so it could be that IKEA devices just aren’t built to last although I’ve has zero issues with my IKEA tradfri bulbs (although these bulbs do get extremely hot, though that’s a separate concern).
The issues I’ve experienced with the IKEA devices have been consistent across (1) my move from ZHA to Z2M, (2) moving my zigbee channel from 15 to 25 (and moving wifi to channel 1), (3) changing my coordinator device from the Home Assistant Yellow to the Smlight SLZB-06 and (4) removing all my 2.4 ghz wifi Ring cameras.
I’m now in the process of either (a) moving over to using the Sonoff Dongle P as my router devices or (b) giving up entirely on my zigbee mesh network…I keep switching back and forth tbh…it’s been two years of one zigbee issue after another and I’m beyond frustrated.
In addition to the IKEA repeater issue here is a list of other issues I’ve been unable to solve despite the above changes:
- Aqara battery devices repeatedly falling off the network
- IKEA battery devices repeatedly falling off the network
- Physical button presses OR clicking on entities in the Home Assistant app failing to result in a device executing an action e.g. opening blinds. In ZHA this would often be accompanied by the log Failed to deliver message: <EmberStatus .DELIVERY_FAILED: 102>
- Light groups in Home Assistant responding inconsistently to commands after switching to Z2M, e.g. only 2 of 3 bulbs turn on or off
In contrast I’ve had zero issues with my zwave and bluetooth devices although to be fair I have very few of those devices.
I have the very same experience: IKEA zigbee devices working nicely at the beginning, but after a year or so, they start acting up.
It’s mostly the TRADFRI control outlet with me, which needs to be unplugged and plugged back in. Very annoying, but somehow glad to know I’m not the only one…
Same here: IKEA repaters worked well a year ago, now regularly offline. Don’t buy.