How to place repeaters

I just bought bunch of securifi peanut smart plugs (were on sale lol)
I’m trying to make my zigbee robuts I have bunch of them, sometimes few iris motion sensors act weird
Any idea where I should spread the smart plugs inside the house?
Also have some arrival sensors (car presence) and want them to be detected as soon as possible. My hub sits next to my velop main router (room located in front of the house), Should I place a smart plug by front door or better inside the garage ?
I appreciate your inputs

Thanks

This FAQ should help:

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thx read that, I need to know from people experience rather than some kind of article

Read post 11 in that thread. I assure you, it’s from experience. :wink:

If you bought a bunch, put one in every room of your home.
https://community.smartthings.com/search?q=Repeater%20in%20every%20room

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your article is very detailed and informative in deed
My concern, is there a side effect to adding too many repeaters as well
I didn’t know that the hub should be moved 3 meters from the router

No, there’s no problem with adding extra repeaters. The devices are smart enough to know not to use up the hops too soon. :sunglasses:

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That’s how I did it!

Hub is central, then I sort of created a circle around it with my repeaters. All of my window and door sensors are signs and are close to the perimeter of the house (windows). So I did my best to put the reporters between them and the hub.

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Do repeaters (smart plugs for instance) need to be on to act as repeaters, like plugged in and ON at the same time?

No, they just need to have current.

Essentially if the device can hear the next “on“ command from the network, it can also repeat because the radio is still active.

So if you can turn it on from the app, it can repeat even if it looks like it’s off. :sunglasses:

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Hi there - newbie to SmartThings in Australia and have read a few threads on zigbee repeating and infrastructure including the very good ones attached to this thread.

I made the mistake of buying and installing >40 Sengled lights (they were half price on sale) before realising they don’t repeat and hub has limited capacity for them - now having dropout issues.
In Australia, repeater options are limited - Samsung SmartThings plugs are best available option it seems, but for the price of two of these, at the moment I can buy a second SmartThings hub.

So my question : is the investment in multiple plugs better for creating a mesh zigbee network or a second router ?? Obviously you get the additional smart device for the plug but if they can only parent a limited number of non repeater devices, a second hub maybe a better option ? I have a two story house so finding a central location with power and Ethernet is also a challenge.

Aside from the lights I’m looking to add multiple door and movement sensors (battery for now) keeping with SmartThings devices for security etc

Thanks for your help.

I don’t think you’re going to get very many responses in this thread. I suggest starting a new topic and putting Australia in the topic title and then hopefully some of the community members there will respond to you.

Meanwhile, It looks like these should work. It will probably require custom code available from the manufacturer.

https://www.amazon.com.au/Approved-Standard-Nue-SmartThings-Automation/dp/B07GX943VP/

Unfortunately, the IKEA Tradfri plug-in pocket socket is not yet available in Australia. Their bulbs are also good zigbee repeaters, but since you’ve already bought all the Sengled bulbs you probably don’t want those. But you might want to get in touch with IKEA directly and find out if they have plans to release a plug in Australia soon as that would normally be your best choice for a value option.

There is a Phillips hue plug-in pocket socket sold in Australia which is Zigbee 3.0 and might work, but I don’t know of anyone who is using it yet. And it probably costs more than the comparable smartthings model so I don’t know that it’s even worth looking at. (Note that in order to use it as a repeater you would have to connect it directly to your smartthings hub, not use a hue bridge as an intermediary.)

Thanks for the detailed reply and suggestions !

So it seems it is one hub with repeaters considering options you’ve provided is how to create the mesh network.

Multiple SmartThings hubs cannot be configured to mesh??

Only the ones which are sold to create a WiFi mesh. So it depends on the model number.

A zigbee network using the profiles that smartthings uses can normally only have one hub, which acts as the coordinator.

However, The ones which are sold to build a Wi-Fi mesh, using one hub as the primary and the others as “sub hubs” can also use a sub hub as a zigbee repeater.

Which model is the hub that you have now?

I have the v3 hub without wifi.

Bottom says M/N : IM6001-V3P06

The dual hub wifi/smartthings you refer to is available individually in Australian stores but not the 3 pack mesh system I’ve seen available overseas.

Current wifi setup has been good so thought it was okay to go without this. Biggest mistake was not realising the Sengled lights do not repeat - I guess Sengled would not feel the need to state this as they market their own hub.

I think the nue switches you linked to amazon look like a good option - aim to have one in each room and hopefully that gets things humming along - when it all works it is awesome !

Take a look at IKEA for their Zigbee Signal Repeater. It might be available in Australia. I know some other Australian users who have been able to source these and have had good luck with strengthening their Zigbee mesh network.

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