Other than the option of fitting external antenna to a Homey, a suggested approach for boosting Zigbee signals is to fit other Zigbee devices to boost the mesh with one of the most commonly suggested examples being to use a Zigbee mains switch.
My question is what if such an additional Zigbee device (mains switch or other) was connected to a bridge device e.g. the Ikea Tradfri hub or a Philips Hue hub? Would the fact it is connected to a hub prevent it boosting the Homey’s own Zigbee?
What advantage if any would there be over getting an Ikea Tradfri signal repeater over an Ikea Trafri wireless control outlet? They are almost the same price and as far as I can tell the outlet would also be able to act as a Zigbee repeater.
No, a mesh is only set up between devices that are connected to the same hub/controller.
Perhaps, but that’s just guessing on my part, the repeater has a better antenna because it’s specifically created to extend a Zigbee network. The repeater also doubles as a USB outlet, so if you need one of those it makes more sense to choose for the repeater instead of buying a separate USB power supply and sticking that in the 230V outlet.
Hi,
I have a stupid question. With the Zigbee I m able to connect only 20 Zigbee devices (battery powered) to homey. If I use one IKEA amplifier, is it possible to connect more devices (30 for example) ? Or the amplifier will only boost the signal ?
A Zigbee mesh is not really limited in the number of devices it can support. It is true there is a limit of the number of devices that can have direct path support to the hub though
One amplifier (or other router device) will not be enough. You cannot force end devices (battery-powered) to be routed through a particular router, nor will they prioritize a router over Homey, so you need to add quite a few (I would suggest starting with 4 or 5) router devices if you really want to solve issues with “too many” end devices.
The IKEA repeaters/amplifiers work well, although it may take some time before end devices will end up getting routed through one. Some brands (like Xiaomi) are quite “sticky” and don’t easily hop over to other routers, even if those routers are more closely located to the sensor than Homey. Sometimes re-pairing the sensor will force them to use a router.
Thanks a lot for your answer.
So I ll order 4 of them and pair again my xiaomi sensors.
I need to do that cause I tried to add my Xiaomi Gateway v3 to homey and I m not able to do it, so I need to find another solution.
You can order these repeaters of course, but you can buy smart plugs (or light bulbs) as well. They work as repeaters too, are about the same price and you get more functionality for your money…
Interested Robert … if a device is in range of the hub but the hub is full from a direct device viewpoint (20, 32 already or whatever) I had assumed such a device would then automatically route through an available ZigBee repeater ?
I understand routers (repeaters) also don’t count towards that number limit but have a restriction themselves as to the number of end devices they support. As your network grows like a tree this isn’t really an issue.
A device doesn’t know the hub is “full”, it just won’t be able to join the network. There is also no “automatic routing”. So you need to increase the chance that a device connects with a router first.
Also, the limit is that Homey can only accept about 20 directly connected devices, no matter if they are routers or end devices. Routers typically also have limits, but that will depend on the device itself. I don’t know the limit for IKEA repeaters.
Yes, although you may have to re-pair the Xiaomi devices after adding the repeaters (in my experience, Xiaomi devices don’t automatically “jump” between routers, even if a newly introduced router has a better signal).
Also, to make this work, make sure the routers are closer (or rather: provide a better signal) to the Xiaomi devices than Homey is.
Bought myself the Tradfri Zigbee amplifier.
But i am unable to pair it with Homey.
As soon as i start adding it using the Trafri-app it stops after 1 second with the message
that there are no new devices found. The device is almost ON the Homey itself (2 cm max)
< /sarcasm>