This is very good info! Thanks for doing the experiment
Please try it. I did that here by shutting off the Rachio-only SSID on the AP in the house, forcing it to roam to the µBarn AP. Let it run there a couple days, then re-enabled that SSID on the house AP. Interestingly: The R3 noticed the better 2.4GHz signal from the house AP and roamed back all on its own.
I never once lost HomeKit connectivity. Just checked. It’s still there and still working. That makes twenty-one days, so far.
My next test (which is days and days overdue because I’ve been involved in a somewhat challenging WiFi and cellular installation elsewhere) will be to kick/ban the Rachio 3 on the home AP, but leaving the SSID active, and see if it’ll roam to the µBarn AP on the same SSID.
That, only on the µBarn AP, caused the R3 to fail getting network connectivity before. I want to see if that failure mode is repeatable.
Well, happy to report good news. I disabled the AP closest to the Rachio (Kitchen) and it failed over automatically to my office AP. Checked Home app and was able to still control it. Turned on some valves and was able to control the Rachio just fine. Enabled the Kitchen AP again and disabled the office AP. It failed back to the Kitchen AP and never seemed to loose any homekit connectivity. So far so good! Seems 2.4Ghz is working a lot better despite being 20ft from the AP and having solid signal strength when it was connected on the SSID that had both 2.4 and 5Ghz.
ICBW, but I suspect that, if you did the same thing on 5GHz, you’d get the same results. That’s assuming the 5GHz signal is plenty solid, from both APs, at the R3.
I suspect the problem is the R3 isn’t dealing well with the same SSID on both bands.
Now, why that would affect HomeKit connectivity, and not WiFi connectivity, entirely, is a mystery.
Ok, well, I don’t know how helpful I can be, but I’ll give it a shot.
I tried to find an Eero Pro user’s manual on-line. No luck. So I don’t know if this is even possible.
Look at @zhazell’s recent experience. Upon my suggestion, he set up an additional SSID on his APs, on 2.4GHz only, and told his Rachio 3 to associate with that, instead of the SSID that was the same on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz. So far: It appears to have possibly fixed his HomeKit/Rachio 3 connectivity problems.
Secondly: Eero mesh devices have some extra bells-and-whistles that I believe are enabled by default. Things that are meant to improve the performance of mesh networks. I don’t recall what they all are, but some of them have been known to interfere with the device/service discovery protocol that is essential to HomeKit working. Specifically: MDNS/Bonjour.
If you search on “MDNS” or “Bonjour” (they’re the same thing), “HomeKit”, and “Eero” I think you should get hits on the settings I’m talking about. (One such setting was even acknowledged by Eero to be a problem. Or was.)
Sorry, but that’s all I got.
In order to possibly help people using mesh networks, I actually looked into acquiring an Eero system to play with. Too expensive for that purpose.
Thanks and no worries. Eero does not allow a split of 2.4GHz and 5GHz for SSID. I’ve fiddled with settings but didn’t make a difference. Biggest thing for me is I have probably 50+ HomeKit devices on my network and they work rock solid with HomeKit so whatever is breaking is something Rachio specific. I remember early on with my Lyric alarm panel, Honeywell had issues working with mesh that required them to have to fix the device code. It seems mesh is a hit or miss affair with the R3.
Thanks for the reminder. Yep, it has continued to work even with the AP firmware updates (just did another firmware update on all APs) this time disconnecting Rachio for a 1-2 minutes until the AP booted back up. Rachio connected back to the HomeKit app and status is showing correctly, valves zone control works.
My conclusion is that Rachio really likes 2.4GH radio over the 5GHz, at least for HomeKit. I had no issues with controlling the Rachio from their app when it was on 5GHz, but it’s cruzin’ along on the 2.4Ghz.
Thanks for the update. I’ll reach out again in a couple more weeks
As I mentioned, earlier: My suspicion is it’ll work just fine on a 5GHz-only connection, too. My guess is one thing (?) that confuses it are connections to WiFi networks with the same SSID on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz.
So, if you’re feeling frisky , you might try creating an “IoT5g” SSID on 5GHz only and re-connecting the R3 to that. But please wait a bit longer. I’m interested in seeing if your R3 remains connected to HK for a month. That would be ten times as long as it ever remained connected to HK before, right? I’d say that would be definitive.
(I’d do this, myself, but my mind is already fully-occupied with other tech tasks going on atm.)
Here’s the thing: Unless a client device needs the bandwidth 5GHz offers (the R3 does not) or 2.4GHz is particularly noisy or crowded, there’s little point to 5GHz. 5GHz has way less “carry” and barrier penetration than 2.4GHz.
I have the numbers, somewhere around, but there comes a point where the signal degradation of 5GHz makes the improved signal characteristics of 2.4GHz a far better bet.
I am not sure if this issue is on our end. I have seen that it occurs with other HK products as well. I will reach out to Apple directly on this as I don’t think our firmware engineer working on this has had a chance to ask as they have been focusing on “No Response”.
I’m just letting everybody know that there is a slight delay in the HK update. There is progress to share but I need to get a clarification from the engineer before I post.
I was travelling this week and came down with altitude sickness. I really appreciate the back and forth between @jseymour and @zhazell it’s very helpful. I’ve captured this for our Engineer.
@Jazzer Appreciate the insight on your issues that you’re experiencing as they relate to Rachio and HomeKit. We have replicated the “No Response” in a simple network and our focus has been narrowing down the issue in these environments first and there is a potential that the fix in simple networks will likely improve connectivity issues in most mesh networks as well.
I’ve a Rachio 3 and Rachio 3 <-> HomeKit connectivity update of my own.
We had sustained strong & gusty winds yesterday afternoon and evening. Finally, around 9:30 p.m., the power started bouncing. Between then and 12:45 in the morning it bounced–either deep sags or downright out–more than nine times. (One sag locking-up the compressor in our A/C, which, luckily we noticed [due to the loud HUMMM we could hear throughout the home]. Shut it down in time to save it.)
The Rachio 3 did become confused at times, thinking the rain sensor had been activated. I imagine it power-cycled at least a couple of those times. I know some WiFi stuff I have that’s not on UPSen did.
Despite all this: The Rachio 3 ran its normal Even Days schedule starting at 3 a.m. and it’s still connected to HomeKit.
Update: Woke up this morning and noticed the grass sprinklers did not run. Checked Rachio via the Rachio app and it said Controller was offline. Weird since I used it quite a bit extensively yesterday turning on/off valves via Siri/Homekit while checking and repairing each zone.
Went to the garage and the 2nd bank of lights was flashing. So the app asked me to hold the wifi button down until the lights went across the device and re-connect to the network.
That was a really strange thing that happened. It re-connected and all seems good, but why would it just disconnect? Nothing has changed on the wifi and nothing was updated network-side.
Just thought i’d share.
Good news is that Homekit has been working great yesterday to quick start valves while I was working on fixing leaks and testing the zones. Continues to work today and remain connected to homekit.
I have had the same thing happen to me two or three times since the watering season began here in late May. Rather than doing anything on the controller itself, I power cycled it, and that fixed the problem.
Of course, that doesn’t answer the question of how this happened in the first place.
Has your power glitched at all? Enough to cause one or more of your WiFi APs to power-cycle?
Only time I ever had that happen was before I put the R3 on a separate, 2.4GHz-only SSID on only one AP. And, even then, it was only after the R3 connected to the wrong AP and I put its MAC on that AP’s deny list.
