I'm currently dabbling with hassio and zigbee2mqtt. Actually surprised at how easy it was to initially get set up using the recommended CC2531 set up.

As per a few others here, I've started with one of the Xiaomi Aqara temperature and humidity sensors, which is working well so more are on the way. I plan to install the additional ones about the house so will need to improve the range of my network by adding a router between the coordinator and the end devices. I had the idea that pretty much any hardwired Zigbee device would act as a router (?), so popped in to Bunnings for a cheap Sengled bulb that is on the zigbee2mqtt supported device list. Some of the other devices on that list say "doesn't work as router" but this doesn't say anything about that.

The bulb paired fine and is controllable from the hassio dashboard, however it is showing in the zigbee2mqtt logs as an EndDevice rather than a Router.

Either I've done something wrong (very open to that idea!) or this bulb doesn't act as a router and I'll need something else. Wondering what others use? Anything available off the shelf that goes, or am I better off DIY-ing a CC2530 router?