I would like to buy a ZiGate to connect some Xiaomi Aqara sensors and buttons, and maybe some Phillips hue lights. But some of them will be far away from ZiGate. So, how can I extend Zigbee signal? Will hue lights or Aqara plugs act as extenders?
For extend zigbee signal you have to buy zigbee product like ( xiaomi gateway or xiaomi wall switch )
@sviudes As far as I know, Aqara plugs will act as extenders/repeaters. Most zigbee lights also should, however, in some cases, they may be less reliable than smart plugs or other similar devices.
Thank you for your answer. Can a xiaomi gateway extend signal for hue lights or viceversa? Or a device can only extend signal for devices of the same vendor?
This depends on the bridge that they are paired to. Zigbee devices cannot be paired to two gateways at the same time, so if all your zigbee devices were to be paired to your ZiGate, you would not be able to add any other gateways to your network. Phillips hue lights use different keys from Xiaomi accessories so it’s impossible to pair hue lights (or any other brand of zigbee devices) to the Xiaomi Gateway. This also applies to other gateways/hubs including the Ikea tradfri gateway and the hue gateway. However, there are some multi-vendor hubs (including the zigate) that you can pair devices from multiple manufacturers with.
Thank you. So, as I understand, I can use a ZiGate hub to pair xiaomi devices and hue lights, and I can use xiaomi plugs to extend zigbee signal to reach far Xiaomi devices, and hue lights to extend signal for other hue lights. Right?
As long as your hue lights are paired to the Phillips hue gateway, they will only extend themselves, however if you pair them the the ZiGate they will (possibly less reliably) extend your whole zigbee network.
Thanks, now I understand 
Do you know more multi-vendor hubs apart from ZiGate?
Yes! A similar device to the ZiGate would be Dresden elcetronics’ conbee. A Hass component for it exists, however you need to do more manual configuration to use it. Also, their software needs around ~600 megabytes worth of dependencies because the gui and the core of the app aren’t split. This is a good alternative, if you don’t mind losing some free space on your server. More zigbee usb sticks exist, but most of them don’t support Xiaomi devices. There are some popular zigbee/zwave hubs though. These include the Vera and the Wink hub. They are both quite popular, and you manage them through a web ui. They also come with cloud management and automation solutions, which may or may not be desirable considering you would like to use home assistant for automation. There’s also Samsung smartthings, which is a good hub, but I highly don’t recommend it because you can only administer it through the cloud, and some “device handlers” (basically community-made drivers for third party devices) don’t work without an active internet connection. Also, I’ve heard that it isn’t rare for their servers to go down for a moment or two every once in a while. Overall, I think that the ZiGate is a great device if you’re only using zigbee accessories. Hope I’ve helped 
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Thank you for your detailed explanation! It helped! 
Happy to help!
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