I’m just building out my Zigbee network, so i can eventually add some sensors at the outer range of the HA universe.
I have a Sonoff dongle as my coordinator and I’m planning to add 8 Tuya repeaters. Although I may need a couple more based on what I’m seeing so far. I’m also going to turn a second Sonoff dongle into a repeater for the edge of the universe (outdoors). I’m going to put a couple of vibration sensors on the garbage bins, so I know when they get picked up or when the wind blows them down the street.
I have one coordinator and five repeaters so far. My topology shows a lot of red lines, one yellow line and quite a few grey lines. It looks like adding more repeaters won’t change my signal strength, but will expand my coverage. I am curious to see if adding the second Sonoff dongle improves my mesh, but I doubt it. None of the lines from my Sonoff coordinator to the closest repeaters are green.
What’s your real world experience with topology line colors vs reliability? What hardware upgrades did you make to improve your signal strength if any?
I haven’t really found the line colors or signal values to be of any practical use… reliability and resilience is more a function of the density of your mesh than the “moment in time” values presented by the map.
Include more repeaters in your mesh than you think are necessary. They are the literal backbone of the mesh. You should have a bare minimum of one per room and one in each hallway.
There are several articles in the Community Cookbook Index that cover various Zigbee-related topics.
Tuya Zigbee can be really hit-or-miss. If you find one of those devices to be unreliable, it is often best to just not use it… keeping malfunctioning routers powered on can wreak havoc on the mesh.
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Thanks, i need to get an extension cable for my dongle and play with placement. It’s only a short extension ATM. I also need to check my USB port, I think it might be a USB 3.
I also have some Sonoff plug modules to act as routers. I plugged one of those in and ZHA saw it instantly, although it’s still not green. HA has no issues controlling it.
I still have a few more routers to install and a reprogrammed coordinator before I am close to real world testing.
I upgraded my Sonoff dongle connection, but i can’t say it made any difference. I’m up to 10 routers now, with a few more to go. The Tuya repeaters seem to take longer to connect than the Sonoff plugs. The last three connections still aren’t showing up in the visualization. I guess it’s no surprise that the more children you add, the longer they take to connect.
I think I’ll add a repeater in the basement, as things seem a bit slower down there. The coordinator is currently on the second floor, but will likely be in the basement when things are settled.
Absolutely. I have four or five in every room - nine in one room (mostly lights and sockets).
The point of adding routers is to increase the number of connections in the mesh. Don’t tumble down the rabbit hole of monitoring and controlling - you can’t. Zigbee is designed to be a black box, self-healing and self-correcting, and to achieve that each router needs to be able to connect with lots of others.
The best real world strategy is to keep adding routers until it works. 
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No worries about Rabbit holes, they are full of routers.
I’m going to try some different repeaters to see if signal strength is better, but it’s more of a curiosity. This stuff is mostly coming from China, so it’s taking a while. Walmart has some deals on this stuff and they are slightly faster than AliExpress.
The testing will begin when i get my Sonoff dongle repeaters setup, so i can try my battery devices outside at 50’.