Aqara appear to comply to the zigbee standard a bit more. at least that is what it looks like to me.
Have you tried this DTH
FYI
My newly added sensor stayed paired overnight with hourly checkins.
I unplugged the Xiaomi outlet last evening, so it’s using a different repeater (which might be another Xiaomi outlet)
I added 11 door sensors back on last night which routed through the Osram bulb. they are all now showing hourly checkins also as well as battery life. So as long as they do not connect directly to the hub then things appear to stay pretty solid. Will be putting them back in situ later and hoping that they stay connected to the bulb rather then move to the hub which is obviously not what I want.
I have the ST outlet - is that an option for using as a mesh? or is it only third party stuff like Xiaomi or Osram?
Also, how do you force it to use the outlet? pair with hub, then turn hub off?
It very well may work, see several posts up, it was mentioned that it does not appear to work with the latest ST outlet but may do with the previous version. The only way to force it is to initiate the pairing whilst being as close to the ‘other’ powered zigbee device. I was about 2 foot from the bulb and all sensors paired to it first time rather than the hub. Do not turn the hub off, you will not be able to pair at all. The outlet has to be paired to the hub of course and I would turn the outlet off/on a few ties from the app to make sure there is a good connection before going to “Add a Thing”. A good test after is to turn the ‘bulb/outlet’ off at the mains after pairing. The sensor will no longer respond in the app but do not leave it turned off for too long as you do not want the sensors jumping to the hub.
Give the ST outlet a try and let us know how you get on. You should know just after an hour of it stays connected even though you may NOT see the checkin for several hours against the Sensor (it does appear eventfully though)
Another thing that forces the sensors to use another routers/repeater is to turn off the hub for an hour.
When the sensors check in, or when open/close they’ll try to find another route, which will be the closest one.
At your own risk though. With recent developments it might be the case that sensors will drop off.
Thanks! @Terk I hadn’t come across that one yet. I will give it a go.
I created a new post for the Xiaomi Aqara button to make it easier for people to find and I added the DTH to the repository for those who prefer to add DTH that way.
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Do we have a list of things that can be used as a router/repeater so that I can get my aqara sensors up and running? Tia
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Think it is just trial and error tbh Frazer. Any hard wired zigbee device has a good chance of working although some may perform better than others of course.
So far the below have been proven to work and at least for me still going strong even after moving a sensor to it’s proper location. Receiving battery and checkin info in the app for all 11 sensors I have added back on for now. Have an outlet on order which I will hope will take over the work of the bulb so the bulb can be put to better use.
Xiaomi Outlet - (tested by @RInkelk)
OSRAM LIGHTIFY LED Classic A60 RGBW - (tested by me)
The Xiaomi outlets work great, even as an outlet.
But i only have xiaomi zigbee devices, there are reports from others that xiaomi-outlets interfere with other zigbee routers when powered off. I don’t have these issues.
I have around 6 in use at the moment (have a few others as spare)
They’re really cheap and work well. You have to buy an adapter since they only fit in US socket (but work with 230v). Or not afraid of some soldering.
I glued an adapter:
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They are pretty much useless in the UK unfortunately as do not accept a UK plug. Will do a complete tear down though and see if I can drop the electronics into a multi socket or similar. Still my main objective is to just plug it into my UPS and leave it to deal with the sensors 
I used a euro plug adapter, cost about 0,90.
I guess there are UK plugs as well?
But yes, using 2 adapters would be silly.
Thinking about opening one too, although they work fine for me as they are.
Thanks, I know I can use adaptors but will need one underneath and one on top lol. Just becomes a mess, well I think so anyway, adapter city!
If I find a use for it I may make some changes but at the moment just really purchased to sort the sensors out. Will look inside though to see if it can be stripped down and put in a different unit which is completely UK friendly.
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Last night I reconnected mine next to a hive bulb and then moved it closer to the location it will be used and it’s stillvreporting now so fingers crossed it’s solved
One thing I have noticed with routing through the Osram bulb is that it looks like the sensors occasionally appear to go offline even though technically they have not as a quick trigger makes them come back online. I am guessing that this may be more to do with an issue in the .18 hub f/w as I did read of issues in that area or even possibly just the fact that mine are missing ckeckins either due to the bulb or the fact that I have a load of them all together in one place at the moment. Either way they are not actually dropping off, simply that the app is showing them as offline even though they are really not. Just something to keep in mind and if may be an issue for you then turn off Device Health (if not used for anything else of course)
This definitely aligns with what I was seeing with mine. [RELEASE] Xiaomi Sensors and Button (beta)
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Hey Jonathan,
Apologies, I sort of read through your message before as I forgot I even had a zigbee bulb (not wired in) but still only have the one device so they were not bouncing to anything before. I have added them to Simple Device Viewer (will try Device Monitor if no joy) now and set it to ping every hour so will see what happens. But the good thing is that they are not dropping off the system, simply that ST shows then as being offline.
Also, this only seemed to happen at around 3am, has not happened at any other time so I wonder if there was a hub issue. The hub just went offline again all on its own a few minutes ago. Really fed up with this .18 update. Think I really cannot do any proper testing or come to concrete conclusions until they fix the other issues with the release.
I had the exact same issue with the Orvibo sensors. About 6 months ago.
An open/close event brought them back to live.
But this was for me too unreliable, as I want to know when a door is opened, not the second time. The Orvibo’s are on a shelf now, eating dust.
I saw the same behavior with an Osram outlet.
I think the Xiaomi sensors talk best with Xiaomi outlets. But that’s just a guess.
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