I have close to a hundred devices. Changing my WiFi would requiring setting all of them up again from scratch. As everything works without issues except the Rachio this is not something I’d be willing to do. Not to mention not knowing if this would even fix this issue.
The Rachio doesn’t lose its wifi so this doesn’t even seem like a wifi issue.
My AT&T gateway does the routing as my wifi base stations are in bridge mode so if anything I would more suspect any issue would be the AT&T gateway but again as wifi doesn’t seem to be the issue anyway.
I wish I knew more about how a HomeKit device is bounded to HomeKit and why the Rachio can’t reconnect after its power is cycled unlike all my other devices do.
A few days ago I replaced my Robi video doorbell with the Logitech video doorbell and it hasn’t disconnected once, Even the Robi video doorbell which was probably the worst HomeKit device I’ve ever bought never disconnected despite its many issues.
You are “disappointed by the behavior of the community”? What, are you my mother all of a sudden? It’s not YOUR job to be disappointed in my behavior, and very presumptuous to believe that it is. Perhaps a chat with your therapist about over-stepping boundaries is in order?
FACT:
Rachio have sold a product with a claim that it supports HomeKit. It does not, in many cases, work as claimed.
FACT:
Rachio have been aware that there is a problem for at least two years.
FACT:
Rachio acknowledge that there is a problem, that it has been reproduced.
FACT:
Rachio have indicated that rather than work on this problem they are working on “new features” for an up-coming release.
There is a problem, it’s not with our WiFi, and Rachio need to sort it out.
I just finished putting the rachio back on HomeKit. I think I got almost a week out of it this time.
Naturally it went down in the middle of checking all three of my zones so had to first put the rachio back on to HomeKit while wet snd dirty as HomeKit went down after turning them on and all I had with me was my AppleWatch as I was using Siri to control them.
Disconnect? Terri, no. Mine never disconnects. What?! I hear you cry! Yes, it is true, my Rachio 3 never ever disconnects from my HomeKit because it is impossible to get the damn thing to connect in the first place. You may get to enjoy days of having HomeKit detect movement via the doorbell camera and turning on the front lawn sprinklers, including that one deliberately maladjusted head that sprays the sidewalk, but I have had no such enjoyment; my mail delivery person is still dry and has been for a considerable period of time.
My Rachio never disconnects from WIFI. It is solid… homekit on the other hand, lasted around 1 hour before it started not-responding. I reconnected again 3 times (very painful process) after that and then gave up all together and completely removed it from HomeKit.
Just so strange… My Rachio never disconnects from Wi-Fi and my HomeKit is as solid as a rock. I am currently clear across the country and I just turned on my irrigation using my iPhone. I would try from my watch if I had it with me.
On very rare occasions after a power outage I have to reconnect the Rachio via resetting Wi-Fi connection. I last time I did this was during the recent Texas snow storm.
I’m curious, is your Rachio connected to 2.4 ghz all the time, or does it sometimes switch to 5 ghz. The reason I ask is because I have a dual-band mesh system with a really strong signal everywhere, and I just noticed that sometimes my Rachio automatically switches to 5 Ghz which can be unstable with HomeKit. Every single HomeKit accessory i have (other than HomePods) is connected to 2.4 ghz and never drop out. Rachio is the only one accessory that uses both bands and is the only one that drops out.
I’d love to help troubleshoot. In something that may nor may not be related, my sons complain that they cannot join their friends in multiplayer Minecraft games, unless they switch from our Wi-Fi network to the neighbor’s (who’s blissfully unaware of this). I have been unable to determine what the reason for that might be.
Adding a HomeKit device should not require an Internet connection, unless you are trying to control something at your home while you are away. Because that is not the issue here, I am inclined to think that the Minecraft thing and my inability to add the Rachio to my Home app are not related.
Mine is typically on 2.4 GHz network without intervention. I have seen it on 5 GHz before but over the past 6 to 8 months 2.4 The few times I have checked
I’m starting to wonder if the HomeKit issues experienced by some (and not otheres) is caused by this. Most Wifi routers nowadays are dual band and switch automatically depending on signal strenght. HomeKit devices do not play well on the 5 Ghz network, this is a known HomeKit issue and not a device issue. The only devices that can be on 5 Ghz without issues are HomePods, Apple TV’s, IPads and Iphones. I would imagine that for most people their controller is further away from their WiFi and Rachio just connects on the 2.4 Ghz band.
@franz have you considered this as an option to the problem some people are experiencing? And if I may, can i suggest adding an option to the firmware to use only 2.4 Ghz for HomeKit users? Other than faster firmware downloads, there really is no need for a 5 Ghz connection on the controller.
That is not the issue. I have a UniFi network and have a specific 2.4 network just for my HomeKit/iot devices - it is a separate SSID that only broadcasts in the 2.4 range. My Rachio still won’t work properly. I have well over 100 HomeKit devices.
But it’s not your wifi. It’s something to do with how they built the firmware for HomeKit into it, (they didn’t really choose a bad way to do it, it just seems that it wasn’t the best way as it turns out. Stuff happens. Heck I got the feeling it was an apple based design they started with and isn’t working) and so they figured out the issue, went back and started from absolute scratch, and are working to make that available in a beta. While doing that they ran into secondary issues of getting this entirely new WiFi control and HomeKit firmware onto controllers due to divergent (absolutely normal in software development) paths it seems in the newer iOS apps.
It takes time to find issues like this.
Frankly I’d rather they take longer and do it absolutely right and have the fix be a final and permanent fix rather than push something out that works today but could break tomorrow because of whatever reason.
It’s clearly fixable, but it also clearly isn’t easy, contrary to some lines of thinking.
They absolutely must continue to advance other updates as well, you can’t allow one issue that only affects some (probably a handful who really truly need and will use it to its greatest extent) customers to hold up something for everyone. In a perfect world we will get both the fix and whatever new stuff all rolled into one update. But I doubt we will get quite that lucky. Plus I don’t know how big their team is, but having everyone work on this one thing probably wouldn’t even be practical or speed anything up by that much.
And frankly, I’ve never seen a company work this well at communicating and letting people know what the issues are and how they are going about fixing them and showing us some of their actual work to fix. There’s plenty of companies who have said over the years this product will be HomeKit capable, and then it never was, because they couldn’t make it work and ditched it.
I see a lot of posts come in and say, what’s the status and why isn’t it fixed, one or two posts right after we had an actual update with ridiculous amount of detail in it.
I have an idea for a wild workaround for you. I’m not sure if or how well it will work, but maybe it’s worth a try till this gets sorted. It won’t solve turning stations on and off with your watch, but it will solve the bird enclosure issue. Get a smart plug, and plug your Rachio into that. Set the smart plug to turn off whenever your temps so low it kicks the heater on. Then have it turn the plug back on when the heater turns back off. Just a wild temporary fix so you don’t get so frustrated adding it back in all the time till they can get the firmware rolled out.
Im betting this is finally fixed by June, which I kind of figured would be the case last august when they started to detail what the real issue was and that they where going to rebuild the thing from the ground up.
There is no citation from Apple, but few simple searches online will show you that 2.4Ghz is the most reliable way to initially set up HomeKit accessories. Many online forums will alsoshow you that 5ghz accessories tend to have not-responding issues more often than 2.4 Ghz
