Can anyone recommend a Zigbee repeater?

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Hi,

I'm pretty new to Hubitat, but we've installed one at the new office and loving it so far!

We already had a Lutron system in place, so I've been upgrading the existing Pico remotes to 5 button ones, so the middle 3 buttons can control IKEA blinds via Hubitat and Zigbee. So far I've got about 10 blinds and lights running fine on one floor.

I'm starting to work on the floor below though, and the blinds are struggling to connect to the Hubitat upstairs. As they are all battery powered, none are repeaters. Does anyone know of an 'install' level repeater - one that I can hide away in trunking or a cupboard somewhere? I don't want it to be plugged in anywhere that someone could just turn it off. In an absolute ideal world, a POE device would be great. I'm running the Hubitat on POE (via a POE-> USB adapter) which means I can hide it in a false ceiling!

Actually.... can another Hubitat act as a repeater? Can you configure multiple ones to talk to each other?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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Ikea repeaters are excellent but do need to be plugged in.

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Much cheaper to buy direct from Ikea

@warren1 You can also separate the repeater from the power supply to use it as a USB powered repeater
(Was thinking about your POE )

Andy

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@Cobra - oh, good point. As I moved all the blinds onto Hubitat I do now have a fair few spare! If they are good as a repeater that might just be the answer...

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IKEA also has a US plug version if you are in the states. As @Cobra stated above, this one also can be plugged directly into a USB port. I'm using one to extend the reach into my garage with no issues. -Joel

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6

Any zigbee smart plug (or other mains-powered device like a wall switch) also works as a repeater - so you could just add some smart plugs, wall switches/dimmers, or the like.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SQGG8Z7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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We're in the UK (Edinburgh). Annoyingly, the actual distance isn't that far - but the building is built of Niddrie Bricks which have a really high iron content! It plays havoc with any RF signal sadly.

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I have a bunch of these

Not only a repeater but sensors too.

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One thing that rarely gets mentioned is that the Ikea repeaters are fairly weak signal wise.

If you need greater range either add more repeaters, do some surgery to add higher gain antennas (as I did as an experiment), or pay ( a fair bit) more to use xbees which much greater signal strength.

With the upcoming 2.2.4 firmware, with the hub mesh feature, basically yes in effect but the hub will still need to be connected to your network somehow.

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"fairly weak signal wise" - that would fit with our use so far. The bricks are so solid that the IKEA blinds (on their own) won't even work from one room to the next.

I'll keep an eye on the firmware updates. I can easily get a hardwired ethernet point anywhere in the building - I put in a lot!

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I just thought I'd re-visit this, now that 2.2.4 has been released. It rocks!

I ordered up another 2 HE's in the end, to make sure I could cover the whole building. Within about 2 hours of them arriving, I had them in position, powered up, configured, meshed and connected to all the devices I needed to. Everything is working perfectly from the Lutron Picos that we have installed.

Now to work on a dashboard :slight_smile: Thanks guys - it's an awesome solution.

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