But I will clarify that it is the Ikea repeater #1 in the ABS box on the side of a metal outbuilding at the end of a 10' USB cable plugged into the provided power brick THAT IS talking to everything within ~125+ feet VERY successfully and consistently. (I hesitate to relay how WELL it did from INSIDE that building peeking through a gap in the large doors before i moved it because I needed to reach devices in the other direction.)
It's the second repeater #1 sitting less than ~50 ft of some of those same end devices that lazily let's #1 handle the traffic.
Again, both have excellent signal strength as best as I can see. I should mention I am in an uncongested radio line-of-sight environment.
Not worth belaboring this. It's not my first rodeo around 2.4Ghz radio. I'm just making an observation in agreement to the previous poster.
At some level the network performance information gathering & presentation of what's working and how well could be an opportunity for Hubitat... just as it is for folks like Ubiquiti ( before needing to call in the more precise low level network analyzer w/ independent antenna & software).
If they were disconnected for 2 months before you realized, did you have issues with devices during that time? If not, maybe you don't really need them
I have 4 Ikea Repeaters but my devices seem to like to repeat thru my cheap EcoSmart Zigbee bulbs from Home Depot instead.
The Ikeas are labeled "Zigbee Repeater -". The Zigbee bulbs are Kids Bathroom A-D, Master Bath A-G, Breakfast Nook A-E and Play Room Sconce A-D. The hub is the thickness of a wall away from Master D-G and the width of the bathroom from A-C.
Knock on wood but my Zigbee mesh seems pretty stable.
Real pain to reset sometimes. I try all kinds of stuff. Holding the button down while plugging them in, holding it for a really long time, multiple presses. Stuff that isn't probably doing anything, but eventually something always gets them reset. That's all you really need. They are a pain and I dread having to reset them and re-pair. Fortunately that's been a rare need.
I used to have the same issue with them. I have since changed the driver I'm using to Markus' generic Zigbee driver instead, [Release] Generic Zigbee Drivers with Presence and Recovery, and I haven't seen them drop once since then. Disclaimer: I've only been using this driver for little over a month.
Oh, and I guess I should mention that I did upgrade my Ikea repeaters to whatever the latest firmware was at the time (using zigbee2mqtt which supports OTA updates for Ikea, not hubitat).
There has been at least one firmware update since they were originally released, so that is one possibility of why they fall off the mesh for some and not others.
But also may have nothing to do with that. Who knows? I wasn't having issues with them dropping off the network before I upgraded firmware either - so that isn't as very good data point.
Can you explain how you did it? (external power) I've some Xiaomi sensors and sometimes I need to put them in tricky places and it will be a relief if I can forgot the change of their batteries.
Thanks!
You can find various guides and tips around the forum to how to open Xiaomi Aqara and Mijia sensors. The Mijia contact sensors are the easiest to open and solder wire to for power. They look nice too and work exactly the same at the Aqara.
Would you expect the talk of device firmware updates "from HE to devices" to bode well for offering a path to doing the same you did with zigbee2mqtt ?
I wasn't having issues with them dropping off the network before I upgraded firmware either - so that isn't as very good data point.
