I have deployed 4 Ring zwave repeaters and 4 aeotec repeaters 5 months ago.
They all have a great connection to the the HE.
Not one of the 30+ zwave device is using them. Even the ones sat next to the repeater with a 9.6 bps awful connection.
All zwave devices have refreshed/repaired.
Is there anyway to get zwave devices to use the repeater near them rather than get a slow connection bouncing around the house?
Seen this question many times recently. Affected me too, so I got rid of the repeaters as they were just taking up space and power outlets and my z-wave devices continued to work just fine without them. I don't notice any slowness and my devices seem to have made a sensible route for themselves. Maybe yours would be more settled if the repeaters were not distracting them? You could try anyway.
It is bizarre, not one single device even the ones which are avoiding 20 nearer zwave devices an repeaters and connect via multiple devices at the far end of the house.
I may just take one offline for 24hrs and see if it sees the light and connects locally.
If that does not yield results I’ll take the repeaters off HE and use them to build another zwave network using a different hub and see how things deal with it then. Should isolate the issue.
Try a couple of days with no repeaters powered up at all. There could be such a thing as signal interference.
The funny thing was that I bought all the repeaters to address the issue of certain devices connecting via other devices at the far end of the house.
The signal has not worsened because of the repeaters but has not made any useful contribution either 
Are the events slow in registering for your needs? I've not really been monitoring the bps speeds but I get signals from the devices in a timely fashion for what I want. If you have motion sensors you need to trigger lights instantly, your needs may be more exacting.
I have only one dedicated Aeotec 7 repeater and many line powered
ZWave Plus switches and outlets.
Aeotec 7 repeater was added about 5-6 months ago.
!!! This one is not used at all !!!
Only 1 or 2 switches are randomly used as a repeaters.
The zwave thermostats and thermostatic valves with a lot of power monitoring sockets, that on prior systems been very reliable.
I am seeing times when a single button invokes a Rule that turns things off, and some times sockets in the same room can respond a minute or more later.
So suspect something is amiss.
I have a new alternate hub arriving this week, will move the relays to that and distribute around the house, then add spare zwave devices and see what they do.
Do powered Z-Wave devices go through other devices or just connect directly to the hub?
They can do either
Thanks for the reply 
Did you have any luck getting repeater to work with HE?
Are you on the C8? I found that my Z-Wave devices just connect directly to the C8 these days despite multiple dedicated repeaters.
Repeaters work fine w/HE (join and function normally) but the particular local mesh and devices will determine whether or not they are used by devices on the Z-Wave mesh. I had a Ring repeater for weeks and weeks, never picked up any of my Z-Wave devices. Meanwhile another repeater (uncommon device called Hank plug) just 6' to 8' away had five or more devices repeating through it. 
Your Z-Wave devices will make their choices and there isn't a whole lot you can do about it, aside from giving repeaters time (as in weeks), maybe doing individual repairs on devices you think should want to route through the repeaters, and changing the location of repeaters.
But no guarantees...I gave away my Ring repeater after a while.
Download the Hubitat app
