Will a non-wiser Zigbee repeater work as a repeater for Wiser?

[madbilly]

Hi everyone,

I've looked around for an answer to this, both here and on other forums, e.g. Home Assistant, but have been unable to find one. The Wiser Plugs are very expensive and I don't actually need a smart plug, so will any other Zigbee device which can work as a repeater work as a repeater for Wiser? E.g. I've got my eye on secondhand Tradfri, Sengled and Smartthings Zigbee plugs as I can get three of them (I need three) for the price of one Wiser plug.

If an off-the-shelf repeater won't work then will a USB dongle like the Sonoff one work with a suitable computer? I've not setup Home Assistant yet but I suppose this would be a good motivation to do so.

Cheers 🙂

[madbilly]

I got a reply on the HASS forums that non-Wiser repeaters won't work because the Wiser Zigbee network will only accept Wiser own-brand devices. Hmmm, quite short-sighted a system design for home automation when there might be many Zigbee devices of different brands that should be able to co-exist rather than each need to use their own exclusive network channel thus unnecessarily creating congestion.