Just moving over from Wink to HE. From what I've read, it turns out that most of the line-powered zigbee devices I have, aren't great zigbee repeaters with Hubitat. Here's what I have (with my comments in brackets). I have no current intention of purchasing any Xiaomi products; my primary concern is to make sure that there are a sufficient number of zigbee repeaters between the HE and my Waxman LeakSmart main water valve, which is far away from where the HE is.
Several Osram Lightify RGBW A19 bulbs (not good repeaters)
Three Quirky Outlink outlets (not good repeaters even with Wink)
Three GE Link bulbs (probably bad repeaters as well)
I purchased the last three because without them, the LeakSmart valve would show up as being disconnected from the Wink hub every other week. With them installed, it hasn't fallen off.
Iris and Centralite products aren't easily found anymore, so that leaves them out. So what should I buy?
Most things besides smart bulbs (and that Quirkly outlet) should be good repeaters. The Centralite outlet you have is pretty popular and I haven't heard of any problems with it (I used to have one too), but all of the rest that you do have plus the ones you are considering look like they'd be fine to me. If you don't have any Xiaomi Zigbee devices, they'd probably all work well. If you do (or even if you don't), the Ikea Tradfri outlets are (almost) dirt cheap and seem to work well for most people, though with perhaps not as strong of a signal as some other devices. An Xbee is something you might consider if you want to map your network and also have something that works as a stellar repeater, albeit one with no other useful function.
I'll also warn you about the latest/2018 ST outlet model: I ordered one directly from Samsung.com, but when it arrived it appeared the product box had already been opened, the item was visibly dirty, and--most importantly--it didn't actually work (nothing I plugged into it worked, nor did the device itself seem to power on or toggle the load power with a tap of the button). I think I read a few reviews that said something like that too, but I thought they were crazy. They were not. Further, Samsung's return policy apparently makes you return and re-order the item rather than just swapping it out with a replacement, which would be less of a problem if they weren't trying to make me return my entire order in one box (which shipped to me in three boxes), even the working items. (It's also on Amazon, but list price. Samsung currently has a sale going on--you'll get a discount if you buy a few or more of any of their new ST devices. Just a warning that you might be testing your luck.)
I don't have ZigBee but I will offer one comment. I didn't look at all of the devices or recommendations but plugin devices can fall out, be removed by someone accidentally or ???? If this device, a leak detector is a very important device for your home security, consider a wired in device.
Agree! There doesn’t seem to be a good option for in-wall outlets as far as Zigbee goes.
At $15 the Peanut plug is a good quick option. I’d say the new IKEA USB would be a good second choice, looked like others have had good experiences with them so far.
I have 2 of the IKEA Tradfri outlets that are $10 and just bought 5 of the IKEA Tradfri USB repeaters and they seem to be going well too. Super cheap, but one note is the $10 smart outlets are pretty big. If you plug one in to a power strip, it would block the outlets on either side of it. I really like the USB repeaters because they fit perfectly behind my wall mounted dashboard tablets in my recessed USB outlet.
They don't?! I thought Ikea's whole thing was world domination and compliance?
Since they are Zigbee, you should still be able to order some and just use USB power supplies for them (the repeater part is just the small USB dongle that plugs into the adapter). I've got one of mine sitting on my desk plugged into a USB port on my PC and it works perfectly. I'm sure you could work something out with someone in the US to order a few and ship them to you.
AFAIK, Zigbee frequencies are the same in the US and AUS/NZ.
There is only one that you can buy that I’ve found, haven’t picked it up yet though, and it hasn’t been verified to work with HE yet. It’s also very expensive in my opinion.
There seems to be one made by Orvibo, but only found it sold as part of a kit.
I have one of the Smartenit relays that runs the attic fan. It worked on SmartThings and works on Hubitat. It uses the Generic Zigbee Switch driver. The driver shows this information about the model and manufacturer: * model: ZBLC15 * manufacturer: Compacta
I don't see any power statistics - don't know if that's due to the driver or the device itself.
Correction/Update:
I switched the driver over to the Generic Zigbee Outlet driver and the device page now shows an option for reporting power. I'm not sure why I used the Generic Zigbee Switch driver when I installed it. Chalk it up to a brain fart.
Further, Samsung's return policy apparently makes you return and re-order the item rather than just swapping it out with a replacement, which would be less of a problem if they weren't trying to make me return my entire order in one box (which shipped to me in three boxes), even the working items. (It's also on Amazon, but list price. Samsung currently has a sale going on--you'll get a discount if you buy a few or more of any of their new ST devices. Just a warning that you might be testing your luck.)
