Zigbee network optimization: a how-to guide for avoiding radio frequency interference + adding Zigbee Router devices (repeaters/extenders) to get a stable Zigbee network mesh with best possible range and coverage by fully utilizing Zigbee mesh networking

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Again, one recommended partial workaround for all those kind of problem scenarios is to simply buy and pair/join a few “known good” or “known great” dedicated Zigbee Router devices to your Zigbee network (meaning purposely made Zigbee repeater/extender products designed for only that use-case and no other purpose. Because if you place a few such dedicated Zigbee Router products in strategic locations/areas as dedicated Zigbee repeaters/extenders then they will kind of act like a network-backbone in your Zigbee network mesh and hopefully make up for the lack of not having loads of Zigbee Router devices everywhere.

  • Two “known good” dedicated Zigbee Router products are the “IKEA Tradfri Signal Repeater ” and “Aeotec Range Extender Zi ”, as both those are well tested and proven work very good out-of-the-box, (so only need to be paired to your Zigbee network).

  • Two "known great" dedicated Zigbee Router products are the semi-DIY solution of buying and using Sonoff ZBDongle-E (EFR32MG21-based) or the Sonoff ZBDongle-P (CC2652P-based) after flashing them with correct Zigbee Router firmware and then powering them via USB-chargers (just for power). That flashing process is simpler than you might think and both of those are proven to work as awesome stand-alone Zigbee signal repeaters/extenders.

I can personally recommend buying those above specific devices for that purpose and placed spread out in your home (suggest adding at least three even in a small home):

Please read my while original guide post and try to understand that because Zigbee has such poor radio propagation in an indoor environment (which translate to very short signal range when passing signals point-to-point through building materials in walls/floors/ceiling or furniture as obstacles), as such it will usually not be enough to only have Zigbee Router devices “to cover for 1 or 2 router losses” like you say as your Zigbee Router devices on one side of your home will not be able to cover for losses on the other side of your home.So I believe that if you think more about it then you can figure that out yourself as should be obvious that redundancy and possible fail-over scenarios needs to be considered for each individual Zigbee device.

Anyway, basic calculations are also explained in both in Zigbee2MQTT’s FAQ (and somewhat better in the ZHA documentation), but those calculations do not consider the Zigbee radio propagation:

However no home is the same, so suggest you just try unplugging a few of your Zigbee Router devices (as in power-off multiple Zigbee Routes in the same area) to at least simulate a power outage of a blowned fuse (as that should kill all devices on the same electrical phase/circuit), then wait to test what happens, (personally I would try to test all possible scenarios to at least test killing all fuses/phases). I think it is much more likely scenario that a fuse blows then more than one Zigbee Router dies on its own.

Actually see that it is explained in Zigbee2MQTT’s FAQ here:

"Why are some links missing from my networkmap? : No worry, in case it happens with end devices (battery powered) it most of the times does not mean the devices aren’t connected to the network map anymore. Some end devices (e.g. Xiaomi door sensor) sleep for a too long time which causes the parent (router child ageing) to remove it from it from its child table. This is what causes the missing link. Even while its not in the child table anymore, the end device can still communicate via the router. This does not always happen since not all routers use child ageing (this is a Zigbee 3.0 feature)."

You can do what you like, but please understand and try to respect that this is not the right place to ask Zigbee2MQTT-specific questions, so you should still refer to Zigbee2MQTT’s own community for Zigbee2MQTT-specific questions and answers, see:

PS: Keep in mind that this “Zigbee” subsection in Home Assistant’s community forum is primarly meant to be about Home Assistant’s native ZHA integration (which is Home Assistant’s built-in Zigbee gateway) and Zigbee devices that can be used with it, and not about third-party Zigbee gateways, regardless if those third-party Zigbee gateways are software applikcations like Zigbee2MQTT, deCONZ/Phoscon, and Z-Way, or third-party hardware appliance Zigbee gateways like Philips Hue Bridge, Samsung SmartThings, IKEA Trandfri Gateway, etc.