Hi All,
I just happened to come across this while browsing the smart lights on Ikea’s website
Has anyone got any of these? For $9.99 CDN I am tempted to pick a few up to place around the house to strengthen the Zigbee network. I have a good number of Ecosmart Connected bulbs but I am not sure if they act as Zigbee repeaters. Every now & then I have a couple of lights drop off the network and I have to reset them.
I’m not sure how those work but for the same price, these work rather well.
I read in several zigbee forums that some users report a very small range and unreliable behavior
I have 2 of them they generally work pretty well. They show as unavailable a lot, but per @dmulcahey that’s expected as they don’t have anything that report status regularly.
98 May fix that.
Here in Canada, outlets sell for $5 more then the repeaters. Plus these outlets are absolutely gigantic.
I got one to try it with zigbee2mqtt. It’s was easy to pair, joins the mesh. I does extend the network. And it has high WAF.
But my xiaomi sensors won’t touch it, even if paired right beside it. At least it work well as a bridge between the coordinator and the router (both CC2531)
I got a few as well, and I don’t lose my bulbs outside anymore. Unfortunately I still struggle with the general integration of Ikea and HA. All my bulbs suddenly changes to unavailable. Luckely a reboot of Hass fixes it. Funny thing is, one of my family members has a gateway too, running same build etc. He never struggles with the gateway. And all bulbs always responds when using the Ikea app. 
.
… But nevertheless, this repeater did the trick for me regarding coverage.
Is there any rule as where to place the repeaters? Do any have to be placed near the HA machine
Well that I don’t think that matters, as it is the IKEA Gateway that sends the signal to the Repeater (I Guess).
I successfully added the 2 repeaters I picked up to HA and named them respectively. I can see them in the ZHA device management page but no where else. They do not show up as an entity. Is this normal? Also just wondering how you know if they are working
I would guess that ‘a repeater’ is made part of a given network and repeats signals from that network - it doesn’t actually initiate or receive any traffic itself.
A hub on the other hand does both and is also available over LAN (cable for sure, but wifi too probably)
So presumably the only way to know they are working is if your most remote devices are visible on the zigbee network.
I have a friend who places a repeater (usually wifi) next to the device they are having trouble with, I’ve tried to point out that a repeater is a bridge and therefore needs to go mid way between hub and devices (though it could take a few hops if you have a REALLY big house (read: mansion)) but they are deaf to any argument.
I’m gonna have to get into this, but I’m waiting for IKEA’s automated blinds (THEY’RE HERE ! YA !!!) and then their integration into HA (too early to speculate on that timeframe). I Don’t do Tradfri bulbs, tried, didn’t like, don’t see the need, and they are a lot more expensive than standard bulbs which go well with a smart dimmer (payback is about 6 years though) AND it means the wife can change a bulb with no issue (no programming, no configuration and mainly they don’t all come on after a power outage).
I am using zigbee2mqtt with CC2531 usb stick not ZHA, I see it as a entity in HA and in Mqtt integrations, but only as linkquality and it’s always in unknown state.
I see that it creates a mesh using the network map.
I have 2 of these in my house working w/ zigbee2mqtt. They work well.
I have been monitoring them since I installed them yesterday and from the ZHA device management screen I can see when each repeater was last seen. They seem to check in less frequently than any of my Zigbee lights but none the less the “last seen” time is definitely updating. Hopefully this will improve the stability of my Zigbee network
Thanks. That’s very re-assuring to know.
As I said in my post; I will “shall” have to get into this when I start blinds.
Hopefully, I won’t need repeaters, but it’s nice to have the option should the need arise.
Are yours the IKEA offering or some generic repeater ?
Any recomendations welcome
Cheers
I just picked up 2 of the Ikea repeaters, they were $9.99 CDN each. Pretty cheap I thought
Yes… it doesn’t provide any functionality that warrants an entity… so in ZHA we don’t create one.
Looks like you have reasonable signal strength to the Tradfi repeater… I picked one up to get a better signal to a few of my Xiaomi sensors, but like you they won’t touch it.
However, more interestingly, my tiny Xiamoi temp/humidity sensors seems to have at least as good a connection (and FAR more consistent) to my CC2531 zigbe2mqtt coordinator than the Tradfi repeater.
what did you use to map out the data traffic as shown in your picture ?
