Now you are talking something more mysterious than the Bermuda Triangle, UFO's and Bigfoot combined. I don't think anyone understands why Zwave picks the routers and repeaters that it does, not even Silabs.
But the concept of the Mesh preferring a device with some functionality over a simple repeater seems to fit what I've seen and some others reported.
I've made my decision... the Aeotec Extender 7 is going back to Amazon. It's not so much the $$ but if I keep it I will continue to be annoyed by its lack of being connected.
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Neither my Ring (downstairs) or Aeotec 7 (upstairs) repeater that are in the house are used (I use the Ring one to tell me if the power goes out). My 2 Aeotec 7 repeaters in the 2 outbuildings are used by quite a few devices (according to the Mesh Details app). Just my 2 cents.
Thanks for your 2¢ 
Your experience seems to suggest my theory;
- A "repeater only" device will be only be added to a devices path to the Hub if NO other functional devices ( plugs, switches etc) are reachable.
might be correct.
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My questions are:
- Has anyone been successful getting an Extender 7 to act as a repeater?
NO!!!!!
I've had the Aeotec RE6 since 2018, and two 7s since 2021. Nothing routes through them, and I've given them years for the mesh to "settle". It's now 2023, and I'm pissed off and excluding them before burning them with fire.
On my C7, I regularly had stuff connecting through some or all 4 of my RE7s, so I know they all worked fine.
Though everything is now connecting direct on my C8, I'm leaving my RE7s in place as backbone insurance for my ZW mesh.
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Same experience. Should have never purchased the Aeotec RE7
Interesting. I have a slightly different approach.
Almost all my experience in smarthome is the original Smarthings hub since 2013 and about 75 switches. Then the HE C7; and as of last week a HE C8.
Until last week, Z-wave has been nothing but a long-term frustration, working about 80% of the time as I repeatedly try to fortify my mesh, upgrade some nodes to +, kill ghosts, fix nodes after power surgest, repair ridiculous routings, etc, etc, etc. For every device in my network, there is a risk probability of it requiring some maintenance or service. It NEEDS to pay its way with providing some level of useful service.
As a result, I've adopted a "less is more" strategy. So, if the Repeaters aren't repeating, get them out, off my mesh, and out of my life. So I specifically disagree with "backbone insurance", and in fact consider it the opposite: additional liability.
But, to each their own. It certainly seems like no two z-wave networks perform the same.
Since I migrated to the H-8, 15 of my 16 devices are direct. The one that isn't — my front door lock — repeats through an Aeotec 7. I have two Ring Extenders, and nothing routes through them. I leave them on, though, to check for power outages.
When I was still on the H-5, I had several of the Aeotec repeaters, plus the Ring. But I didn't have a lot of visibility into whether anything was routing through them. Once I migrated over and could see the routing info, I let my mesh settle for a week or so and then removed the Aeotec repeaters that weren't being used. It's all been solid.
