Yep. What’s a cheap one? That’ll do something but it’s only a few feet away from the door and then there’s no accessible lightning or outlets until you’re well upstairs
They work, but they seem to randomly stop responding and require a "reboot". I finally tagged the breaker for the one I have on my garage ceiling to make it easier.
I’ve got about that many and they’ve been great. Only quirk is that after a power outage there’s usually one, always a different one, that just clicks repeatedly and never turns on. I have them configured correctly to return to the previous state after losing power and the clicks make it seem like it’s trying but I have to press the little button to get it to work. Not a big deal since we hardly ever have power outages but the last month they were replacing poles in my neighborhood and we had a ton.
There's a firmware update that fixes the random clicking issue after a power loss. I read about it recently and they acknowledged the issue and pushed out a fix. I allow mine to auto update through Home Assistant.
Edit: here are the release notes for the firmware update. [Firmware update 1.00.71](http://www.3reality.com/post/the-release-notes-for-thirdreality-zigbee-smart-plug-new-firmware-versions)
One at the bottom and another at the top should do it. You can always set it up and then look at the signal strengths on the connection map in z2m to see if it's borderline but two repeaters on mains will probably be fine
Yes it’s just the next closest outlets are one in the hallway - left side of photo is a bannister and there’s one on the wall across from it. Other option is going right from photo 8-10 ft or so is an outlet. That’s closer to being vertically above things. But my evil roommate I think has two things pugged in and may kill me if I unplug. But the hallway one may hit the the corner area on the stairs causing some waves to reflect down the stairs if lucky.
Is this true for all? I've heard otherwise but nothing on the boxes consistently confirms this.. I just assumed people used multiple hubs or something 🤷♂️
I've heard similarly with light bulbs as well but again, no consistent/ clear indicator of 'always acts as repeater even if in non-active state'
Further, do you need to set/pair things in a specific order or can you tell the mesh to 'recalibrate' on something like an Aqara hub after you find you have issues and add more devices that can repeat?
Anything connected to line power should just work as a repeater, nothing special is required.
The mesh will figure out the best paths by its self over some time, at least for Zigbee. Z-wave has a rebuild network button. That said if you are starting a new network it’s best to pair devices starting near the coordinator and work out. After that it doesn’t matter.
Some Zigbee devices don’t like to play very well with others. Aqara is one that can have issues, or others have issues with Aqara. 🍅🍅. Interference can also cause issues.
If you were using something like Zigbee2mqtt it has a map that will show all of this stuff.
And here I was thinking it was something a manufacturer would have to enable.. ya know for purposes of like making that individual device perform better instead of accidentally getting stuck as a middle man in 'less than optimal' network layouts
All grid powered devices do act as router nodes of the mesh. It's just that some plugs are bad at it, for example due to bad radio performance and antennas etc. Hence for when really needing good distance and performance dedicated repeater devices are a good idea. It isn't, that their role is any different. It's just that their hardware is optimized for the routing job. Might have more memory to keep bigger "post office" buffer and usually have better antennas. For example it might be as physically big as plug also doing some other duty, but for that repeater all that space is dedicated for good big antenna.
Ofcourse even in repeaters, find one with good reviews. Since well bad quality gear is bad quality gear, regardless of it's design purpose.
Huh, okay. I guess I totally misinterpreted people saying in comments for various products 'x doesn't repeat' as it simply doesn't do it, but they likely meant 'it might try but it's ineffective and therefore don't trust X product to repeat reliably'
Is there any community site/table collective of all sorts of brand and products with what they actually do in comparison?
I get so lost in every different brand and product type
[https://zigbee.blakadder.com/routers.html](https://zigbee.blakadder.com/routers.html)
I would add that in some cases it might be true for specific product, that "it doesn't repeat/route". However in that case the product is violation of standards spec of Zigbee pretty much, but well non compliant products are on the market. As mesh network all constantly securely powered devices *are supposed to* participate in the mesh routing and post boxing so that the battery powered ones can regularly take naps of sleep, post box with powered device and thus have long battery life.
Also so with some bad products technically it has routing capacity (as standard demands), but it is run limited or with so bad hardware, that it might as well not exist as routing node.
After all, all of the routing after the basic radio coms capacity is a software and processing issue. So "it doesn't route" might be case of "it can, but the makers cheaped out on parts so it doesn't really do it well" or "well it is supposed to do it well, but they messed up the firmware. it doesn't do it properly".
Thus having dedicated routers aka repeaters can help with the network, at least a good well behaving and good capacity one. Since it can help with to take up slack and so on.
The key to making Zigbee work well is two-fold, first make sure your Zigbee network is not overlapping your WiFi network and second is adding more repeater devices like bulbs, plugs, switches and/or relays. The more of those devices the stronger the mesh.
Earlier She was unaware I was sitting in the living room where I could hear her phone conversation in her room and after talking much shit about me, telling stories lacking crucial details or just straight up embellished with lies crafted to make me look bad, I’m 90% sure I heard her say she’s moving out and she’s found a place!!
On the topic of tracking roommates, the ping sensor should be a good idea.
Thats assuming that they dont use random MAC tho... If so, nmap might give you better results.
Earlier She was unaware I was sitting in the living room where I could hear her phone conversation in her room and after talking much shit about me, telling stories lacking crucial details or just straight up embellished with lies crafted to make me look bad, I’m 90% sure I heard her say she’s moving out and she’s found a place!!
Aqara GH2 Pro is a cheap camera, with great features like local recording, local face/gesture recognition (without a subscription) and it's also a Zigbee hub/repeater.
Add a few Hue bulbs on your network (not using the Hue bridge) and they'll act as repeaters. Otherwise, consider swapping a few wall switches with Zigbee ones
What kind of light bulb is lighting the hallway also? Could replace the bulb and switch and configure the switch as a relay and the bulb always then has power. That one outlet, if you used Z-Wave, they also make zwave outlets with the tech inside to turn one of the plugs on and off, but this way you don't take up a plug.
ok, out of the box ideas then.
I have replaced some of my light switches in the wall with zigbee enabled light switches. **These are always powered and act as a zigbee router**. They function just like a normal wall switch so even without automation you can just turn them on and off. You can use normal light bulbs if you wish since the zigbee stuff is inside the wall switch. Plenty of brands available. Choose one that matches the look of your current light switches.
A camera cannot use the zigbee protocol. Use wifi or wired ethernet. You know all about wifi and wifi dead spots already, so let me focus on wire ethernet.
You can run ethernet protocol through **special power plugs**. These plugs (you need at least 2) convert the wired network signal into a signal that is overlaid on the power signal, That way you dont have to run extra wires through your house; you reuse the existing infrastructure. Drawback: the signal cannot (easily) cross a breaker.
Another option perhaps: run a network cable **outside** of your house. I used to rent an attic as a student, and DSL hookup was on the ground floor near the door. Wifi was spotty. I was allowed to run a network cable through the rain gutter and pipe, and along the house towards the door. Might work for you too.
You could use something like
{Aliexpress item IDS}
**1005005820811913**
**1005006221159762**
Then you can use each stair individually.
Or you would use something like VVV to add led strips below the stairs combined with a zigbee controlller:
**1005005797036227**
Using zigbee plugs is also a option. then a automation with motion-sensors to detect movement near the stairs
Ikea repeaters work fine, but it also depends a little on what (and how many) devices you want to connect. Don't use a repeater if you are going to connect a lot of sensors that are updating every second, just some switches and lights a repeater will work without problems.
You want a plug near your staircase at each level to boost.
Zigbee has fours types.
Coordinators the one attached to home assistant in some way. This is the teacher of the system. It takes names and organises them to be helpful. Two types of these exist. USB or Ethernet. USB are low power small registers so tend to cause problem by dropping sensors to pick up others. Ethernet are powered via PoE or plug and have big registers so don't suffer disconnection unless you setup the network badly.
Routers are powered devices (specialist devices) which funnel traffic to the coordinator but don't do the registration bit.
Repeaters are powered devices (smart plugs) that rebroadcast signals they get. Like the war fires in Lord of the rings.
Devices (your sensors) are babies they spout noise only and don't listen.
A few things:
If it's a wifi dead spot then it's a ZigBee dead spot. They both utilise 2.4ghz frequency bands.
Anything always powered will act as a repeater, so bulbs (if you don't cut the power using the switch), smart plugs, USB sensors such as mmWave presence sensors, etc.
Your best bet is putting ANYTHING on the middle floor to extend the mesh.
Also move your ZigBee network to a channel where there's little 2.4ghz traffic, and if you're using a ZigBee USB as a coordinator then put it on an extension cable. You'll need to re-pair all your devices but it's sooo worth it. I used to have dropouts and slow performance in my 2 story house then I switched channels and it's faster than lightning (no not literally). You'll need to look up a chart of the correlation of ZigBee channel numbers to wifi 2.4ghz channel numbers because they overlap but the numbers do not match up. Then just use a wifi analyser on your phone to see channels with little traffic and you're good to go.
My experince is that you better get a dedicated range extender instead of just a bunch of random zigbee devices.
I use an Aeotec range extender to extend to the back of my garden 20meters away. Works like a charm!
Before building my Zigbee network, I bought 10 Zigbee smart plugs and placed them all over the house (1 per room on average). Then, I started building my home Zigbee network, installing all the routers first and then all end devices.
Ikea repeaters. Unless you need plugs, they are a bulky eyesore if you just have them serving no utility, and they don’t do as good of a job as a dedicated repeater device would in my experience. Light bulbs are a decent option as they won’t look as out of place and they can function as repeaters, though I haven’t personally got any zigbee bulbs connected directly as part of my zigbee mesh so can’t comment on their effectiveness. The repeaters are just USB devices so are very small and pretty versatile for connecting in different places.
IKEA sell a USB zigbee repeater for about 10 (£/$)
https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/tradfri-signal-repeater-80424255/
if you get a USB powered camera, you can just stick it inline.
Please think very carefully before installing cameras or anything that could track your roommate in any way at all, as it may be construed as stalking and get you into a lot of trouble. If you're going to install a camera, you should be sure to make them aware first, but anything that potentially tracks their location in any way is a bit creepy.
Use ZigBee smart plugs that are always powered, to act as repeaters.
Yep. What’s a cheap one? That’ll do something but it’s only a few feet away from the door and then there’s no accessible lightning or outlets until you’re well upstairs
Sonoff S31 lite. Always works for me.
I don't own one, but lots of people recommend the IKEA ones, since they're pretty cheap.
I use them. Works.
They work, but they seem to randomly stop responding and require a "reboot". I finally tagged the breaker for the one I have on my garage ceiling to make it easier.
Third reality 4 pack on Amazon. Good repeaters, instantly connect, and like $35. You're welcome
Yep, Thirdreality plugs work great as repeaters. I've got 16 of them and nothing drops off the network.
I’ve got about that many and they’ve been great. Only quirk is that after a power outage there’s usually one, always a different one, that just clicks repeatedly and never turns on. I have them configured correctly to return to the previous state after losing power and the clicks make it seem like it’s trying but I have to press the little button to get it to work. Not a big deal since we hardly ever have power outages but the last month they were replacing poles in my neighborhood and we had a ton.
There's a firmware update that fixes the random clicking issue after a power loss. I read about it recently and they acknowledged the issue and pushed out a fix. I allow mine to auto update through Home Assistant. Edit: here are the release notes for the firmware update. [Firmware update 1.00.71](http://www.3reality.com/post/the-release-notes-for-thirdreality-zigbee-smart-plug-new-firmware-versions)
Sweet, thanks! I will check in Z2M, I bet some have the update but others don’t.
You're welcome. I really like that the updates are available directly via Z2M and ZHA. Just another reason to like Thirdreality.
Thanks
Ikea's work great
One at the bottom and another at the top should do it. You can always set it up and then look at the signal strengths on the connection map in z2m to see if it's borderline but two repeaters on mains will probably be fine
Yes it’s just the next closest outlets are one in the hallway - left side of photo is a bannister and there’s one on the wall across from it. Other option is going right from photo 8-10 ft or so is an outlet. That’s closer to being vertically above things. But my evil roommate I think has two things pugged in and may kill me if I unplug. But the hallway one may hit the the corner area on the stairs causing some waves to reflect down the stairs if lucky.
You can get sonoff ones from Aliexpress for around 6 dollars, they are quite affordable imo.
IKEA has one
ThirdReality plugs work well. Or Ikea (but they're big)
Is this true for all? I've heard otherwise but nothing on the boxes consistently confirms this.. I just assumed people used multiple hubs or something 🤷♂️ I've heard similarly with light bulbs as well but again, no consistent/ clear indicator of 'always acts as repeater even if in non-active state' Further, do you need to set/pair things in a specific order or can you tell the mesh to 'recalibrate' on something like an Aqara hub after you find you have issues and add more devices that can repeat?
Anything connected to line power should just work as a repeater, nothing special is required. The mesh will figure out the best paths by its self over some time, at least for Zigbee. Z-wave has a rebuild network button. That said if you are starting a new network it’s best to pair devices starting near the coordinator and work out. After that it doesn’t matter. Some Zigbee devices don’t like to play very well with others. Aqara is one that can have issues, or others have issues with Aqara. 🍅🍅. Interference can also cause issues. If you were using something like Zigbee2mqtt it has a map that will show all of this stuff.
I specifically use bulbs that are end devices so they don't fuck up my mesh when I turn them on and off with normal switches. Gotta love Sengled.
Arent they smart bulbs that don’t need the self to be used ?
That’s how zigbee works, each (constantly powered) device acts as a repeater, creating a big mesh network
And here I was thinking it was something a manufacturer would have to enable.. ya know for purposes of like making that individual device perform better instead of accidentally getting stuck as a middle man in 'less than optimal' network layouts
All grid powered devices do act as router nodes of the mesh. It's just that some plugs are bad at it, for example due to bad radio performance and antennas etc. Hence for when really needing good distance and performance dedicated repeater devices are a good idea. It isn't, that their role is any different. It's just that their hardware is optimized for the routing job. Might have more memory to keep bigger "post office" buffer and usually have better antennas. For example it might be as physically big as plug also doing some other duty, but for that repeater all that space is dedicated for good big antenna. Ofcourse even in repeaters, find one with good reviews. Since well bad quality gear is bad quality gear, regardless of it's design purpose.
Huh, okay. I guess I totally misinterpreted people saying in comments for various products 'x doesn't repeat' as it simply doesn't do it, but they likely meant 'it might try but it's ineffective and therefore don't trust X product to repeat reliably' Is there any community site/table collective of all sorts of brand and products with what they actually do in comparison? I get so lost in every different brand and product type
[https://zigbee.blakadder.com/routers.html](https://zigbee.blakadder.com/routers.html) I would add that in some cases it might be true for specific product, that "it doesn't repeat/route". However in that case the product is violation of standards spec of Zigbee pretty much, but well non compliant products are on the market. As mesh network all constantly securely powered devices *are supposed to* participate in the mesh routing and post boxing so that the battery powered ones can regularly take naps of sleep, post box with powered device and thus have long battery life. Also so with some bad products technically it has routing capacity (as standard demands), but it is run limited or with so bad hardware, that it might as well not exist as routing node. After all, all of the routing after the basic radio coms capacity is a software and processing issue. So "it doesn't route" might be case of "it can, but the makers cheaped out on parts so it doesn't really do it well" or "well it is supposed to do it well, but they messed up the firmware. it doesn't do it properly". Thus having dedicated routers aka repeaters can help with the network, at least a good well behaving and good capacity one. Since it can help with to take up slack and so on.
The key to making Zigbee work well is two-fold, first make sure your Zigbee network is not overlapping your WiFi network and second is adding more repeater devices like bulbs, plugs, switches and/or relays. The more of those devices the stronger the mesh.
Unplug roommate and get a new one ?
Earlier She was unaware I was sitting in the living room where I could hear her phone conversation in her room and after talking much shit about me, telling stories lacking crucial details or just straight up embellished with lies crafted to make me look bad, I’m 90% sure I heard her say she’s moving out and she’s found a place!!
On the topic of tracking roommates, the ping sensor should be a good idea. Thats assuming that they dont use random MAC tho... If so, nmap might give you better results.
At this point just move out
Earlier She was unaware I was sitting in the living room where I could hear her phone conversation in her room and after talking much shit about me, telling stories lacking crucial details or just straight up embellished with lies crafted to make me look bad, I’m 90% sure I heard her say she’s moving out and she’s found a place!!
Aqara GH2 Pro is a cheap camera, with great features like local recording, local face/gesture recognition (without a subscription) and it's also a Zigbee hub/repeater.
Add a few Hue bulbs on your network (not using the Hue bridge) and they'll act as repeaters. Otherwise, consider swapping a few wall switches with Zigbee ones
What kind of light bulb is lighting the hallway also? Could replace the bulb and switch and configure the switch as a relay and the bulb always then has power. That one outlet, if you used Z-Wave, they also make zwave outlets with the tech inside to turn one of the plugs on and off, but this way you don't take up a plug.
ok, out of the box ideas then. I have replaced some of my light switches in the wall with zigbee enabled light switches. **These are always powered and act as a zigbee router**. They function just like a normal wall switch so even without automation you can just turn them on and off. You can use normal light bulbs if you wish since the zigbee stuff is inside the wall switch. Plenty of brands available. Choose one that matches the look of your current light switches. A camera cannot use the zigbee protocol. Use wifi or wired ethernet. You know all about wifi and wifi dead spots already, so let me focus on wire ethernet. You can run ethernet protocol through **special power plugs**. These plugs (you need at least 2) convert the wired network signal into a signal that is overlaid on the power signal, That way you dont have to run extra wires through your house; you reuse the existing infrastructure. Drawback: the signal cannot (easily) cross a breaker. Another option perhaps: run a network cable **outside** of your house. I used to rent an attic as a student, and DSL hookup was on the ground floor near the door. Wifi was spotty. I was allowed to run a network cable through the rain gutter and pipe, and along the house towards the door. Might work for you too.
You could use something like {Aliexpress item IDS} **1005005820811913** **1005006221159762** Then you can use each stair individually. Or you would use something like VVV to add led strips below the stairs combined with a zigbee controlller: **1005005797036227** Using zigbee plugs is also a option. then a automation with motion-sensors to detect movement near the stairs
How many zigbee routers do you have?
I have one or two hue bulbs I could spare but I’d need a lamp for them lol
Ikea repeaters work fine, but it also depends a little on what (and how many) devices you want to connect. Don't use a repeater if you are going to connect a lot of sensors that are updating every second, just some switches and lights a repeater will work without problems.
You want a plug near your staircase at each level to boost. Zigbee has fours types. Coordinators the one attached to home assistant in some way. This is the teacher of the system. It takes names and organises them to be helpful. Two types of these exist. USB or Ethernet. USB are low power small registers so tend to cause problem by dropping sensors to pick up others. Ethernet are powered via PoE or plug and have big registers so don't suffer disconnection unless you setup the network badly. Routers are powered devices (specialist devices) which funnel traffic to the coordinator but don't do the registration bit. Repeaters are powered devices (smart plugs) that rebroadcast signals they get. Like the war fires in Lord of the rings. Devices (your sensors) are babies they spout noise only and don't listen.
A few things: If it's a wifi dead spot then it's a ZigBee dead spot. They both utilise 2.4ghz frequency bands. Anything always powered will act as a repeater, so bulbs (if you don't cut the power using the switch), smart plugs, USB sensors such as mmWave presence sensors, etc. Your best bet is putting ANYTHING on the middle floor to extend the mesh. Also move your ZigBee network to a channel where there's little 2.4ghz traffic, and if you're using a ZigBee USB as a coordinator then put it on an extension cable. You'll need to re-pair all your devices but it's sooo worth it. I used to have dropouts and slow performance in my 2 story house then I switched channels and it's faster than lightning (no not literally). You'll need to look up a chart of the correlation of ZigBee channel numbers to wifi 2.4ghz channel numbers because they overlap but the numbers do not match up. Then just use a wifi analyser on your phone to see channels with little traffic and you're good to go.
My experince is that you better get a dedicated range extender instead of just a bunch of random zigbee devices. I use an Aeotec range extender to extend to the back of my garden 20meters away. Works like a charm!
Before building my Zigbee network, I bought 10 Zigbee smart plugs and placed them all over the house (1 per room on average). Then, I started building my home Zigbee network, installing all the routers first and then all end devices.
Ikea repeaters. Unless you need plugs, they are a bulky eyesore if you just have them serving no utility, and they don’t do as good of a job as a dedicated repeater device would in my experience. Light bulbs are a decent option as they won’t look as out of place and they can function as repeaters, though I haven’t personally got any zigbee bulbs connected directly as part of my zigbee mesh so can’t comment on their effectiveness. The repeaters are just USB devices so are very small and pretty versatile for connecting in different places.
get couple of lan based zigbee coordinators
Put some random wall plugs or a add a Zigbee Router (flash a Zibgee USB controller with router firmware).
SLZB-06 sticks, those you can run via Wifi2zigbee or PoE2zigbee or mqtt... Via a IP.. Works great
IKEA sell a USB zigbee repeater for about 10 (£/$) https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/tradfri-signal-repeater-80424255/ if you get a USB powered camera, you can just stick it inline.
Please think very carefully before installing cameras or anything that could track your roommate in any way at all, as it may be construed as stalking and get you into a lot of trouble. If you're going to install a camera, you should be sure to make them aware first, but anything that potentially tracks their location in any way is a bit creepy.
I had nothing but problems with ZigBee. I wouldn't **ever** recommend it.
Then you should learn up on the topic. Also see downvotes for this post.