As I consider moving my devices from SmartThings to HE I am curious about zwave and zigbee powered devices that act as repeaters.
Does the mesh act like one network or will there be two separate? One from ST and one from HE.
My thought is how to keep my zwave and zigbee mesh networks strong and healthy as I move devices over. Especially the powered devices which are acting as repeaters.
Oh Boy..
The only correct answer seems to be... It Depends.
First, you will have two independent networks. A ST network and a Hubitat network and they will not see each other. Hub Link is the answer there. It adds (probably) all your ST devices as virtual Devices in HE and you can start migrating your Automations.
If your ST mesh has just 2 paths out to the most distant device, and you affect both those paths by transitioning those to HE, then clearly, your ST mesh will be fully broken to the most distant device.
On the other hand, if you moved only one of those critical paths, both HE and ST could get to the most distant device and the migration would be "smooth" (all other things being equal, and they never are.)
Some have suggested doing a "whole house move." Take a day, migrate all your devices and do a repair or three at the end. Then enjoy!
I took two swings at it... once to test out Hubitat, found I was convinced and then "factory reset" it and started all over, migrating everything in about 28 hours. I think it's clear that Hubitat 'testing" isn't needed by many, given the number of people that have successfully migrated everything and powered down their ST.
Search this Community for all your devices and know what will migrate trivially, migrate easy, migrate hard, or migrate not at all. (yet.) Figure out how you're going to migrate your automation... Rule Machine is great and if you are new to RM, understand that more than one Rule is often the solution, you'll be fine. If you must, WebCoRE is available.
Thanks for your reply. Oh Boy is right 
That has nothing to do with Mesh Network signal that just is about HE and ST devices not seeing each other from a command center perspective. I am really asking about signal here.
OK this seems to imply that the answer to my question is that the repeater devices will ONLY repeat on their own Mesh Network, that they do NOT repeat all zwave and/or zigbee signals. That is what I am really trying to ask here. Sorry if I worded that poorly.
How would I know what my "critical paths" are? There is no mesh map that I am aware of.
Yea, but that's never going to happen. I have 79 devices/virtual devices across a large home where signal will matter. Not to mention all of the complex automation around them. I can't move this all at once.
I have several devices I already know are not yet implemented. I plan to implement them but that will take me time, for development and testing.
So I think the answer is that powered devices will NOT repeat both mesh signals.
What about dedicated repeater devices. I never bother purchasing any of them but it seems to make sense that they should simply repeat any signal they see since they have no other purpose. Do you know if dedicated zwave and/or zigbee repeaters will work this way? If so I may consider installing some.
79 devices?? Bah!! Slacker!! 
I have 90. 
My experience is almost entirely on the ZWave side. I have a small stack of Zigbee devices that caught my interest (hope?) over the years, but I have zero in use at this time, and have no plan to change that. Therefore, I may offer opinions that only apply to ZWave, without meaning to be confusing.
Repeater's won't repeat traffic for your neighbors, and they won't repeat traffic for your 2nd (3rd or 4th) network either.
I wouldn't invest in a repeater only device. Just get an Appliance Module and use it for that purpose, it will find a purpose after migration, I believe
Haha, good point, didn't think of that.
That's been my policy but if repeaters could repeat multiple networks I would consider.
OK you win, you moved this all over in less than 2 days.....amazing...
I cheated. If you look, you'll find a thread here about how I joined my shiny new Hubitat to my existing network. I did all that so you wouldn't have to In my defense, that was well before Hub Link and Other Hub were "invented". Thus, by the time I was ready to factory reset and start all over, I too got all the Tools you have access to.
I started (the 2nd time) by adding Hub Link and getting all those lovely virtual devices. Then I moved a room full of devices and another and another. Because I had already created all the automations the first time around, it was pretty fast to look at the photos I had of every Automaton and peck it back in.
Routers and repeaters only repeat signal for their joined network. Other channels or meshes need their own repeaters.
That is correct. These devices repeat only for the network to which they belong.
I strongly suggest not adding more than 20 zwave devices to your network In a three day period. The Mesh needs time to build and you can introduce a lot of troublesome errors if you try to do more than that.
What about dedicated repeater devices. I never bother purchasing any of them but it seems to make sense that they should simply repeat any signal they see since they have no other purpose. Do you know if dedicated zwave and/or zigbee repeaters will work this way? If so I may consider installing some.
Dedicated repeaters for Z wave were needed in the third generation, back before 2015, when many devices had limited signal strength. However, we're now in the fifth generation (Z wave plus) Dedicated zwave repeaters are a complete waste of money now as almost all fourth or fifth generation Z wave devices transmit at full power any way. Almost all mains-powered Z wave devices now Will repeat just as well as the dedicated repeater devices, including light switches, pocket sockets, in wall micros, relays, etc. and they'll generally cost less than the single purpose repeaters in addition to giving you the extra functionality. Really at this point the single purpose zwave repeaters are just a marketing exercise. 
And, like all zwave devices, the dedicated repeaters have to be joined to a single network before they can process those messages, so for security reasons, they will only work with one network.
Zigbee is a somewhat different issue. as there are some dedicated repeaters for some profiles that can be useful, but for a DIY residential home installation it's really the same answer. Just use any of your other devices that repeat zigbee and you'll be fine as long as the backbone is laid out effectively for each protocol. 
Download the Hubitat app
