Ok, I've done a fair bit with wifi devices, now I'm waking up to zigbee.

Got myself an S26 R2 to play with, but just wanted to clarify a few things…

So, if I had a few of these around the house, would they form the man backbone of the zigbee mesh network? Or do they not provide that function?

And also - possibly n00b question - I presume there's still a need / benefit to flash with esphome? Couldn't see anything obvious on the site and only searched online for a few mins before giving up and asking for experience rather than random sites…