I understand and this question accounts for about 99% of our support requests. A repeater adds a level of redundancy in the mesh which makes the mesh stronger and more resilient to issues (lost commands etc). Normally if you’re just using a single lock with a simple lock unlock command it works just fine. However when you start programming multiple locks simultaneously that puts a fair amount of load on the mesh and experience has shown that commands gets dropped or lost. You’re not the first person to ask this question, we can only show anecdotal evidence of what works best. Here is an example:
In general adding a few (upto 4) repeaters makes the mesh stronger and more redundant (more nodes pick up the broadcasts so if one node fails or there is a timing issue or collision the other node transmits the information) but the downside is that you could introduce some latency. In the case of programming locks, resiliency is preferred to latency i.e. ensuring the commands reach the locks and responses from the locks are reported back to the hub
Again each setup is different. You appear to be very savvy about your setup. You can always experiment with what setup works best for you.
The quality of the mesh is beyond the scope of the app, the apps sure programming engine has built in some detection for dealing with lost commands and does retry programming if it detects a collision or a lost command.
As for installing the app multiple times. We’ve got detailed step by instructions to install the code and the app on our website here:
If you need to install the app more than once just follow steps 8 through 10 for each additional app install. What this does is you’ll see a separate icon and listing for each time you “install” the app on your ST mobile phone. Since the current version of the app can only handle a single iCalendar URL, you will need to install the app once for each property with its own iCalendar. You can give each app install a unique name. Say “RLA Property X” so you can identify by name which app instance is handling which property and correspondingly which lock(s) (while a single app instance can program multiple locks, locks should not be shared between app instances)
Regarding the multi unit feature, yes that’s in the pipeline for the next release where you can have multiple property calendars in a single app install and even share locks between properties.
Hope this helps.