I currently have a Xiaomi contact sensor in a back room that is out of range of the hub. Using a Centralite smart plug as a repeater, it does well, but after the hub firmware update this week it has stopped checking in (only one of my Xiaomi contact sensor to have an issue, but also the only one working off a repeater). As these are mounted devices, taking them off and getting within range of the hub is annoying and time consuming. Not to mention the pairing process leaves a lot to be desired. They are great for the price, but I need singing a little more reliable and easy to use. Any suggestions would be great
You can try rebuilding your zigbee mesh by remove the battery of the sensor and turn the hub off both battery and AC plug. Put the battery back on the sensor but still keep the hub off for about 20 mins and then turn the hub back on.
Thanks, may give that a try tomorrow.
The Xioami Devices are not certified for the zigbee home automation profile, which is probably why that particular brand is so often reported as dropping off. Also why the pairing process is weird.
I think any certified Z wave sensor or ZHA certified zigbee sensor Will have fewer problems if the mesh is strong.
There is the issue with zigbee sensors that if you have Osram/Sylvania lightbulbs or some of the other zigbee brands paired Directly to the SmartThings hub, you can run into a problem. These devices identify themselves as repeaters to the hub, but when the network is busy they can get into a kind of buffer overflow condition where they drop some of the messages given to them. This can cause sensors to appear to be unresponsive when in fact their sending messages just fine but the bulbs are dropping them. There’s a comment about this in the official support based document near the end.
https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/articles/214191863-How-to-connect-SYLVANIA-Bulbs
But that doesn’t seem to be the problem with the Xioami If you look in those threads, you’ll see that it’s a common issue with those. 
So stick with certified devices, make sure the mesh is strong, and you should be fine, at least as good as SmartThings gets with regard to reliability, which is a separate issue.
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Thanks for the info, @JDRoberts
Pairing is just another step with having to go into logging to get device ID and set up manually. Not the end of the world, but if I have to keep re-adding it, it gets a little tiresome.
I am running Cree bulbs (one in the vacinity of the centralite plug). I haven’t read anything about them causing issues, but I haven’t looked extensively either. May be something to check into.
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