New Smartthings Wifi subhubs as Zigbee and Zwave repeaters?

@Brad_ST

I’m looking for some help in determining if my ST wifi sub hubs are actually working as repeaters. Several of my Zwave devices 40ft from my main hub but only 10ft from a sub hub constantly lose their connection once the main hub is moved after pairing.

I have asked support for help and I have gotten nowhere with them for two weeks now.

Thanks for any help.

I have the same question. I have 3 hubs, with one as the main controller. Are the others serving as repeaters, or would I be better off with other devices, such as switches, outlets, etc?

They should be acting as repeaters, but in the case of Z wave, you may have to run a Z wave repair With all of the devices in their desired locations to get your other devices to start using them.

Thank you!! Can those same secondary hubs also run zigbee, and will they automatically recognize zwave vs zigbee. I have some zwave and some zigbee thermostats.

Yes, as long as all the devices are on the same location in your SmartThings account, the subhubs should work as repeaters in the same way that any other zigbee or Z wave device in that physical location would work. This was not true when the model was first released, but they added this capability a few months afterwards and it was handled with a firmware update. :sunglasses:

Thank you, Ill try resetting the secondary hubs and see if they extend range to new zigbee devices in that part of the house.

Remember that you don’t get anything more out of the sub hub than you would add from any other zigbee device in that same location. Just because you can reach the subhub with Wi-Fi doesn’t mean you can reach it with Zigbee. If a zigbee pocket socket plugged in near the subhub would not be able to join your network, the subhub will not be able to act as a zigbee repeater, either.

Essentially each subhub is a plastic box with multiple radios inside, one for Wi-Fi, one for Zigbee, one for Z wave. Each is running on a separate network of that protocol. Each with its own range and hop limitations.

I have 1 master hub and 5 subs.
I can’t see any evidence that the sub hubs communicate the Zigbee protocol.
I spoke with Smartthings support this morning. The representative told me that only the Master hub communicates with Zigbee protocol.

I have one Sylvania A19 lightbulb in an outdoor garage light. It is the furthest from the master hub. I stopped communicating yesterday. I reset tried to set up again many times.failure. I moved the light bulb to near the master hub and it connects immediately. I then move the bulb back to the garage location… nothing.

I wonder what I am missing. I really thought the sub hubs would let me communicate with Zigbee and Zwave devices further away from the master. Model of my six hubs: ET-WV525 Smartthings Wifi

Is it possible the sub hub isn’t in Zigbee range of the main hub? (they don’t extend zigbee and zwave over wifi/LAN)

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That was true for the first generation, Samsung Connect, And for the first release of the second generation, “SmartThings WiFi with Plume,”. But a few months after release there was a firmware update for the second generation which then did allow the subhubs to act as Zigbee repeaters. This was confirmed by smartthings engineers posting to this forum.

So as always, the model number matters. But in your case, you have the newer model, and so the individual subhubs should indeed act as Zigbee repeaters. But they aren’t any different from any other Zigbee device in that same location, such as plugging in a Zigbee smart plug there. You don’t get extra range, you just get the same typical zigbee range of about 40 feet.

The problem light is approx 60’ from master hub.

There is a sub-hub about half of that distance in-between.

I assumed it would go the said 40’ to sub hub then 40’ again from that sub hub.

Is my thinking flawed?

No, that should be correct, although depending on the order in which you added the Devices they might not all be aware of each other. :thinking:

Have you tried doing a Zigbee heal?

Take the master hub off power but leave all of the other Zigbee devices on power including the subhubs.

Leave the master off power for about 20 minutes. This will cause all of the other Zigbee devices to go into “panic mode“ because they can’t find the master hub.

Then when you put the master hub back on power, the individual devices will rebuild their routing notes.

Be patient! You may not see any changes until the next day. This process takes a while. don’t physically move devices around or add new devices in the meantime, just let everything settle while the routes rebuild.

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Zigbee heal! I’ll try that. I saw the zwave fix and tried that but I didn’t see anything about Zigbee.

Thanks for the tip!!!

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There is also a separate issue with potential interference/signal blockage. The 40 feet isn’t a guaranteed distance, it’s just a typical distance under typical conditions. Metal, colored glass, water, concrete, trees, etc can all block signal and reduce the distance it can reach.

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