At home I have Zigbee sensors scattered around the house and a couple of sensors have low link quality that had resulted in gaps in my sensor readings. I'd read that it's possible the extend the range of a Zigbee network and the Ikea near me had Tradfri signal repeaters in stock. I picked up a couple.
Initially I tried following the instructions on the zigbee2mqtt website to pair the device but didn't have much luck. In the end I found out that I had 20 devices already paired to my CC2531, so adding more wasn't a good idea. I set up a second Raspberry Pi with a second CC2531.
I eventually got the signal repeaters working and found out a few things:
E1746s needed a custom network key
The E1746s wouldn't communicate successfully without a custom network key set up on the Zigbee network. My CC2531 would log messages like this showing that it was seeing something but it wasn't able to decode the payloads:
warn 2020-12-13
10:39:34: Received message from unsupported device with Zigbee model
'undefined' and manufacturer name 'undefined'
warn 2020-12-13 10:39:34: Please see: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/how_tos/how_to_support_new_devices.html.
These messages have gone away after pairing with a network key set.
Pairing and configuring process takes minutes
Unlike other Zigbee devices which pair and configure quickly, the process for the E1746s takes minutes and the E1746s seemed to go to sleep (or abandon the process) midway. I had to push the reset button mid-pairing on the E1746 to successfully configure the device. The logs for zigbee2mqtt looked like this (lines with starts and in bold show where I did something):
* pressed reset here *
info 2020-12-13 10:36:45: Device 'Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01' joined
info 2020-12-13 10:36:45: Starting interview of 'Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01'
info 2020-12-13 10:36:45: MQTT publish: topic 'zigbee2mqtt/bridge/log', payload '{"message":{"friendly_name":"Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01"},"type":"device_connected"}'
info 2020-12-13 10:36:45: MQTT publish: topic 'zigbee2mqtt/bridge/log', payload '{"message":"interview_started","meta":{"friendly_name":"Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01"},"type":"pairing"}'
* pressed reset here *
info 2020-12-13 10:38:02: MQTT publish: topic 'zigbee2mqtt/bridge/log', payload '{"message":"announce","meta":{"friendly_name":"Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01"},"type":"device_announced"}'
info 2020-12-13 10:38:07: MQTT publish: topic 'zigbee2mqtt/Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01', payload '{"linkquality":149}'
info 2020-12-13 10:38:08: MQTT publish: topic 'zigbee2mqtt/Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01', payload '{"linkquality":152}'
info 2020-12-13 10:38:08: MQTT publish: topic 'zigbee2mqtt/Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01', payload '{"linkquality":149}'
info 2020-12-13 10:38:08: MQTT publish: topic 'zigbee2mqtt/Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01', payload '{"linkquality":152}'
info 2020-12-13 10:38:08: MQTT publish: topic 'zigbee2mqtt/Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01', payload '{"linkquality":152}'
info 2020-12-13 10:38:08: MQTT publish: topic 'zigbee2mqtt/Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01', payload '{"linkquality":152}'
info 2020-12-13 10:38:08: MQTT publish: topic 'zigbee2mqtt/Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01', payload '{"linkquality":149}'
info 2020-12-13 10:38:08: MQTT publish: topic 'zigbee2mqtt/Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01', payload '{"linkquality":149}'
info 2020-12-13 10:38:08: MQTT publish: topic 'zigbee2mqtt/Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01', payload '{"linkquality":149}'
info 2020-12-13 10:38:08: Successfully interviewed 'Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01', device has successfully been paired
info 2020-12-13 10:38:08: Device 'Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01' is supported, identified as: IKEA TRADFRI signal repeater (E1746)
info 2020-12-13 10:38:08: Configuring 'Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01'
info 2020-12-13 10:38:08: MQTT publish: topic 'zigbee2mqtt/bridge/log', payload '{"message":"interview_successful","meta":{"description":"TRADFRI signal repeater","friendly_name":"Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01","model":"E1746","supported":true,"vendor":"IKEA"},"type":"pairing"}'
info 2020-12-13 10:38:09: Successfully configured 'Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01'
So far I've seen a couple of MQTT messages with link quality paylods, so it looks like they are working now:
MQTT publish: topic 'zigbee2mqtt/Ikea Tradfri Repeater 01', payload '{"linkquality":31,"update_available":false}'
