I did not count through them when I wrote my previous message “have around 40 of them…”
So here is an actual count;
12 Door/Window (mix of Xiaomi and Aqara)
4 Temp
6 PIR (4 in situ, 2 on my desk under he rubbish somewhere lol) Mix of Xiaomi and Aqara
1 Water/Flood
3 Power sockets but they are in their boxes even though they still appear in the app.
2 Aqara Buttons
2 double wall switches (they are in my list but sort of gave up playing with these due to time)
These are the ones which are in situ, I also have some at the bottom of my list which takes the total to 39, the ones at the bottom still all state as being online though. I wonder if the buttons/switches are treated differently. I only have one of them that seems to drop off occasionally and am pretty sure this is due to distance, quick press and it is back online though. Now been going through hell with my Z-Wave devices recently, ST seem to be messing with the cloud and config which is causing me misery at the moment with them dropping offline whereas my zigbee devices have never been more solid. Despite this I am actually moving more and more to Z-Wave. Have some decent outdoor PIR sensors now which are far more configurable etc. The only ones I will probably defo keep are the Door sensors, I have actually embedded the majority into the tops of my doors and on the smaller windows around the house and external building I have hidden them in the UPVC Window frames. On the Main windows and doors I use Fibaros and Sensative Strips.
I have never had any luck with routing them through other devices. The ONLY way to keep the alive is to have them connected directly to the hub, well at least whilst pairing and for them to establish the handshake fully. I do have a few Xiaomi sockets but they are hardly used these days and are back in their boxes so I currently do not have anything online that would act as a repeater. Sorry I cannot help further