One of the selling point for ConBee II is “Signal range”, however, no devices I have at the moment can be used as a repeater. I have some wired wall switch from Aqara but they are not recognized as either routers or switchs. Currently, the Zigbee coverage in the house is pretty bad. It causes sensors have a slow response and sometime no response at all.
I would love to add some repeater in the house but I am not sure which device I should get to extend the signal coverage. Is there a list of devices which can be use as router or repeater?
What’s the differences between router and repeater in the following context?
Devices further away are connected through the Zigbee Mesh network. In this network, all mains powered Zigbee devices, such as lights and sockets, act as repeaters and can route the signal.
I recently purchased a number of Xiaomi ZNCZ12LM’s (the plugs with energy measurement). I like them since they work as repeaters and pretty solid plugs since they can toggle as well as tell me when the device is in use or not.
These did increase my signal range but one thing I noticed is I’ve had a few instances where devices basically fell off the network and had to be re-paired. That never happened until I started introducing routers/repeaters.
I found this github issue for Zigbee2MQTT which sounded similar. Reading it the problem makes sense (cached bad route essentially) but resolution isn’t totally clear.
Was curious if you ever faced anything like this once you introduced routers/repeaters into the network or if its all gone smoothly for you.
If the zigbee device is powered by the mains, it’s likely to operate as both an end-node and a router (see this video by Andreas Spiess). Most zigbee light bulbs will function as routers and forward messages to devices that are distant from the coordinator.
If the zigbee device is battery-powered, it will operate as an end-node but not as a router (it would drain the device’s battery).
As far as I know, the term is “router” and a zigbee router forwards, or “repeats”, a message destined for another device.
NOTE:
If you watch the linked video, you’ll see battery-powered routers are possible but they need fairly large batteries (that still require frequent charging).