I was looking the zigbee chart for the first time today, I read that is not perfect but works.
I have 2 C4 hubs with zigbee devices, but one have aqara door sensors plus some ikea repeaters, one door sensor is dropping the network and I ignore it but looking the chart I notice that my repeaters are doing nothing.
In my other hub looks like the chart it's fine, is more like how I can make the repeaters actually repeat?, the door contact I have dropping the network is because of this problem, it has a repeater right there and not using it.
I also have a ton of repeaters not being routed through even when they are close, the devices use the farthest repeater away! I give up on making sense of zigbee routing lol
This may sound extreme, but I contend that chart (and it's ZW companion chart) is completely worthless in terms of providing any sort of meaningful and/or actionable information.
It's a pretty picture to look at, but that's all it is. I recommend you don't go down the rabbit hole of trying to discern anything useful from that chart - it's a fool's errand.
It's a well-intentioned tool and it would be really great if it worked as hoped, but unfortunately, it doesn't...
It's a very long and complicated story as to why that it (numerous threads about it here on the community), but the bottom-line is that it's simply best to ignore these charts as a troubleshooting tool.
In my other hub looks like the chart it's fine, is more like how I can make the repeaters actually repeat?, the door contact I have dropping the network is because of this problem, it has a repeater right there and not using it.
If you have multiple hubs you may have to try joining the troublesome device to your other hub and see if it plays nicer on that one. There isn't wany way to force devices to use repeaters, you could try joining it far from the hub w/repeaters in between it and the hub.
The Zigbee chart as has been noted is not necessarily accurate/up-to-date and can't be assumed to be completely accurate.
Unless you have newer Aqara devices that are Zigbee certified, they are non-standard devices. They tend to be very fussy about repeating devices. The Ikea repeaters should work, although I have heard some negative reports on their capabilities.
Do you have any other line powered Zigbee devices such as smart plugs. I had some older Smartthings and Centralite plugs that prevented Aqara devices from working. Once I got rid of them and added Zigbee 3.0 certified repeaters, they worked just fine.
The C4 hub is getting long in the tooth, but if it continues to do what you want it to do, you can continue to use it until the hardware dies. The newer C8 hub does offer significant upgrade potential such as support for Zigbee 3.0, Z-wave 800 and Matter. If you have no plans to use devices other than contact sensors and repeaters, then upgrading is not necessary.
I purchased a c7 like a year ago, still waiting to get some time to install it. I have two c4 with 2 zigbee networks, one is to separate those older aqara devices from the other non aqara devices, both hubs are working fine, just asking if I could fix those aqara to use the repeaters, or if the repeaters are doing nothing I could delete them. I don't have any other devices in this hub than ikea repeaters/plugs and aqara door contacts, maybe one flood round sensor under the washer machine but I don't know if it is connected.
I don't want to talk about the c8 and matter exclusive which I think is somehow unfair to c7 users, but been with HE since the early time I understand they need to make money to survive.
Anyway, I also installed Lutron, so I'm replacing some Zwave devices with Lutron right now.
At the risk of derailing this topic (but you brought it up ), from the limited info that staff have shared publicly, I believe the assumption that matter compatibility on the C8 only was a decision made exclusively (or even primarily, with other concerns being secondary) to extract more money from customers to be a fallacy.
I won’t keep straying off topic, but if you would like to know more, it’s possible to read more about what apparently drove that decision-making process in other threads devoted to the new Matter compatibility.
I think I will try this first, $30+ for a repeater having 4 repeaters installed is not what I was looking to do. Thanks for the suggestions.
I'll google more to see if there is a way to force the aqara to use a repeater, I have some zigbee repeaters that we used for chart at the early days, I don't remember their names, but I have 2 of them not used, I bet looking my old posts I will find about how to use them, lol.
Those could work well...I'm not really familiar w/them but the general "rep" I have on them is good, IIRC. How's that for vague...
AFAIK there is no way to force a connection in Zigbee, the devices choose based on reported signal strength of available repeaters, and I don't think there is a way to either fake that reporting, or force a particular connection. Adding @Tony for some real info...
I found the thread where we tested the xbee, and true, the HE chart is really bad...
I found with the xbee chart that those repeaters are working, they have some devices connected to them and also they are connected between them.
I marked this as solved, I'll try to re pair the problem sensor going further so the repeater will be closer than the hub, this is the only problem I have.
I can say those aqara door sensors are awesome, I have them nearly 5 years now, never replaced the battery on any of them. I have other sensors like humidity or flood, they are good also but battery life is shorter in the humidity sensors.
$140 for the xbee? Wow, I have 3 with adapters sitting in a drawer. 2 xbee3 and 1 xbee pro s2, I have them just for testing the network and I forgot I had them. I also have a zwave box that does a chart. Anyway, I have a box with new stuff I never installed, maybe I should start selling some stuff
), from the limited info that staff have shared publicly, I believe the assumption that matter compatibility on the C8 only was a decision made exclusively (or even primarily, with other concerns being secondary) to extract more money from customers to be a fallacy.
How's that for vague... 
