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.
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