In your situation, I would suggest looking at the following thread. The poster there managed to use two XBee boards to communicate with each other and extend his zigbee network outward that way. It’s quite a technical discussion, but it does show that it’s doable. And the OP is in England, which is why, like you, he was looking for alternative repeaters. You’ll see that in his ultimate configuration he ends up with a device very like the one you mentioned in the first post, except that he’s put it together himself and it’s compatible with SmartThings.
