When you add repeaters, ensure that they are aqara compatible. Anything that is certified zigbee 3.0 appears to be.
My home has two floors plus a basement, so there is no way I can keep all the vibration sensors within 20 ft of the hub without using repeaters. In some instances, I would need to cover 50-60 ft with some of that distance being through walls, floors, etc.
Unfortunately, compact sensor devices such as the Aqara devices do not have sufficient space for a proper Zigbee antenna. A Zigbee device with a good antenna can usually connect to the hub at a distance of 50-60 ft or so though normal drywall construction and up to a few hundred feet through open air.
For me, it is not worth risking the integrity of my Zigbee mesh to salvage a couple of inexpensive Aqara sensors. I will keep them on the chance that future upgrades to my devices will allow them to be used.
My experience is with the Xiaomi Aqara Leak Sensor. Amazon.com
I had read comments/reviews where people said it would work if it communicated thru your (non Aqara) hub, but if it had to get routed thru a repeater, it would unpair/fail to communicate. However, the leak sensors we've deployed have been seen both talking directly to our ST hub and thru some Peanut Plugs as repeaters, and they've been 100% stable. I've not tested them with HE yet but my point is that they do talk to non Aqara hubs/repeaters and can be stable. I've not tested the other Aqara sensor types.
Pros:
- Relatively inexpensive.
- Uses 2032 3V coin cell battery, inexpensive and easy to replace.
- The pairing button is accessible thru the case. No taking it apart to pair or force a check in.
- The sensor terminals on the bottom are also screws and you can install a remote sensor if you wanted.
- Small(-ish) sensor.
Cons:
- On one of my ST hubs, I had to place the sensor within 12 inches of the hub to pair it. Any further and it just would not pair (single long flash after starting pairing will indicate error). On another ST hub it paired at a "normal" distance.
- Does not do temperature measurements. This didn't really affect me but its something to note.
- The check in period is NOT adjustable at the device level and is hardcoded to between 50 and 60 minutes. During the check in it reports battery level and your hub will know the the device is still online. For a leak sensor this seems like a really long time. I'm guessing its because it has a (relatively) small battery. As most hub logic is to warn of an offline sensor after double the checkin period (in this case, 2 hours), ultimately this limited its use for us, as a lot of water damage could occur within that time frame. My opinion is batteries are cheap, water damage is expensive. YMMV.
- From what I gleened reading thru the custom Aqara device handlers for both HE and ST, the device just doesn't support as many of the features of similar zigbee leak sensors.
Overall I felt that there are other leak sensors on the market in both Zigbee and Zwave forms that are more flexible and are similar in cost. We ended up not deploying them widely but I could see where they still have a place. They DID pair with ST and they DID communicate as expected with some of the caveats mentioned above.
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I installed 1 of the Aquara motion sensors about 2 weeks ago. Has been working like a charm.
It's close enough to the hub so it probably has a direct connection. I have approximately 20 other Zigbee devices connected to the Hubitat hub.
It is funny that many people say that the Securify Peanut plugs are not very effective repeaters for standard Zigbee devices. Yet they seem to work with the non-standard Aqara devices.
There are many Zigbee plugs that work well with standard Zigbee devices, but not Aqara devices. Finally, there are repeaters like the Tradfri from IKEA that seem to work effectively with both standard devices and Aqara devices. So much for standardization.
???
They don't. I've monitored this fairly carefully using zigbee2mqtt. Aqara devices don't like any router that isn't zigbee 3.0.
Everything I have read says Aqara devices use a non-standard version of Zigbee, but I cannot confirm whether that is true. I do have some Hue Zigbee motion sensors that are Zigbee HA 3.0; they work perfectly with my current setup. If Aqara is standard Zigbee 3.0, then they should work as well as the Hue sensors.
I do have some Centralite outlets in my home that are Zigbee HA 1.2, so that is probably the reason I have difficulty with the Aqara devices. They do not seem to bother the Hue motion sensors. At this time it is less expensive for me to shelve the two Aqara devices I purchased than to purchase four new Zigbee HA 3.0 power monitoring outlets. If I do upgrade the outlets to Zigbee 3.0 in the future, I will try the Aqara devices again.
That is not in dispute. To be clear, my comment was addressed at this statement that you made:
Securifi Peanut plugs do not work as routers/repeaters for Aqara devices. I make this statement after carefully monitoring a network of 60+ Aqara/Mijia end-devices using zigbee2mqtt. That same network also reveals that every zigbee 3.0 router I've tested has worked well with Aqara devices.
Sorry for the confusion. In his post above [coreystup] indicates that he has Aqara water sensors working with Peanut plugs in the system. I was surprised by that statement, but since I do not have any Peanut plugs, I was unable to dispute it.
I have no plans to purchase Peanut plugs. The only reason I have Centralite plugs is that they provide power monitoring.
I believe you, but my experience with Aqara flood sensors + Peanut Plugs was otherwise. They showed as using our Peanut Plugs as repeaters under ST and they worked great first try. Stable, never detached or needed re-pairing. These were Peanut Plugs that I had flashed to the latest firmware with the Almond hub previously, if that matters. I was surprised it all worked as I had read all the comments otherwise but I thought it was worth trying.
I've never tried any other of the Aqara sensors. YMMV.
The flood sensors differ from other Aqara sensors; I’ve seen them repeat through Iris v2 plugs, which the other sensors won’t use.
I believe it's best to use quality, proven things, especially when it comes to floods and other disasters that can cause significant damage.
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I read these two statements as contradictory. Just in case anyone else was confused too. 
What part of the sentence, "The flood sensors differ from other Aqara sensors; I've seen repeat through Iris V2 plugs, which the other sensors won'd use", did you find difficult to comprehend?
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I can confirm, these Peanut would only mess, drop and introduce issues to almost any iteration of zigbee mesh. I had 6 of them and sold them. Went for the SA-003 eWeLink and had never looked back.
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Never mind.
I just ordered 3 sonoff temperature sensors for $20. 3 day USA shipping. For $6.50 worth a try 3PCS SONOFF SNZB-02 Zigbee Temperature Humidity Sensor Smart Home Remote Monitor | eBay
I want to order the contact sensors but how big are they? Can anyone take a picture next to a coin? Thank you
I agree and I’m VERY cheap, but a flood sensor isn’t with saving $10 on
