Currently having an OH3 on an RPI and a CC2531 with a few Xiaomi/Aqara sensors (<10). Doing research into making my home smarter, looking at light switching options and found the ZBMINI (Zigbee 2-way switch). This in theory, looks like the best solution to me, allowing me to keep (i.e. not throw away) the old rocker switches, plus acting as Zigbee routers expanding the range of the network, plus being in bulk cheaper than smart switches.
Now I am trying to understand the limitations (if any) of a Zigbee network when using the CC2531 as a coordinator, with say 10-15 ZBMINI as routers (plus some sensors, maybe more in the future). My understanding from here is that the CC2531 only has a limit of about 5 nodes and 40 routers that directly connect to it, so I presume that having end nodes connected to the routers, which some of them will connect to other routers to get to the coordinator might not be an issue.
The question is, first, what is the difference between normal and source routing? Do I care, do I need to do something special about it? Do I need to do something special to ensure some routers connect through another router to the coordinator or is this automatically handled?
Does anybody else have such a big router network in a home setup with a CC2531? Do I need, want Z-Stack_3.0.x or should I stick with the 1.2 routing firmware? It looks like 3.0 on CC2531 doesn’t have source routing.
A lot of questions, so sorry for that, hope to find some answers, if not, I’ll just pull the trigger, buy 10 ZBMINI’s and experiment with them and report back here 