Thank you for this post.
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@SalisburySam Hi John, I am surprised that you are having troubles with HomeKit not working reliably. I have over 200 smart home devices working in our home with HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Hubitat… I’m also on an Eero mesh network with 5 nodes spanning 3 floors and around the home covering over 8000 sqft.
My network configuration is a /20 -or- .240.0 subnet with ~300 out of a possible 4096 hosts on the network, over which half of these are reserved IP’s…
Our Smart home technologies include Hubitat, Lutron Caseta with 2 bridges, Hue lighting also with 2 bridges, iDevices switches and dimmers, KwikSet Premis, Ecobee smart thermostats, LogiCircle cameras, Plex media, Insignia garage openers, Apple and Android TV’s, Logitech Harmony, and Sonos audio with Airplay 2.
My Rachio 3 works with Alexa, Google and Hubitat…. everything EXCEPT HomeKit. Before Eero I was on an antiquated Apple Airport network and nothing worked reliably, but since replacing with the Eero mesh network everything works flawlessly except for the Rachio 3 of which I have an Eero node within 5 feet of it.
While I still monitor this unending thread, I am thoroughly perplexed as to how this is the only device which seems to NOT remain connected to the Apple Home…
While I would be thrilled if it ever came to pass, I have since given up on Rachio ever getting it to work with HomeKit… I find it implausible that they are even discussing this with Apple, because if it were so, well that would just indicate complete incompetence, which I do not believe either Apple or Rachio to be so. It simply has to be that neither company is truly interested in working together to resolve this issue. My gut instinct tells me that Rachio built the Rachio 3 with some piece of circuitry that is simply incompatible with the Apple Home setup…
I’m curious however as to why this thread still remains as an open discussion when there cannot possibly be an intent to resolve this connectivity issue. They should simply admit, this is not possible and look towards a solution for the Rachio 4 and put everyone out of our misery in hoping for something that most likely isn’t possible due to a hardware design flaw???
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Wow, I am humbled! I’m definitely NOT a networking guy but as a consumer in this regard some things work and some don’t. My eero set up is eight (yeah 8) eero Pros in a two-story 5000 sq ft historic home with lath-and-plaster walls that just kill WiFi signals. My ISP delivers fiber to the house at 300Mpbs up and down very reliably. CAT6 to the gateway eero, WiFi to other 7. Everything is DHCP.
Of my not-so-smart devices, I have 11 iHome smartplugs of which maybe 4 are continuously stable and connected. Others require constant resetting to stay part of HomeKit and give the dreaded “No Response” message on Home. We had several Amazon Shows v2 and they were more annoying than helpful and also had device connection difficulties so we returned the Shows.
Given your enviable success, I’m doing something very, very wrong but I’ve done the obvious troubleshooting steps like deleting apps and reinstalling, rebooting everything many times, repairing, reconfiguring, rinsing and repeating. It’s been very frustrating and I’ve pretty much given up on Home. The devices work pretty well in their own apps, just not with the luxury of using Siri and Home.
But thanks for giving me hope.
One thing I notice in your configuration, and something I neglected to convey in mine… I actually removed one of my Eeros which made things run smoother, so now I only have 5 and probably only need 4… but I have 3 of the 5 hardwired via Cat6… one on each floor and then the 2 that are meshed via wireless are peripheral…
As hard as that may be perhaps you might try figuring out how to get some of the mesh backhauled via Cat6? See if that helps…
Another thing… When I switched from Apple to Eero, I started with a new Apple Home as well… Took days with that many devices, but I felt it was worth the effort and so far it seems to have been.
Lastly, We have 1GB down and 40MB up, through Spectrum… but their service is terrible, goes out multiple times per week and sometimes things don’t recover well when that happens. So, I do end up having to reboot my network about once every 6-8 weeks or so…
Oh, and I have a reserved IP address for every Smart Device on my network…
For instance things like routers, wifi mesh nodes, ip phones, storage area network devices and printers are on the 192.168.5.0 network between .1.2 & .1.99, desktop computers and servers start at .5.1.100. Smarthome devices, TV’s, and Audio Equipment are on the 192.168.6.0 network… transient devices like cell phones and laptops are not reserved and hook at the 192.168.7.0 network, but everything is on the same 255.255.240.0 subnet…
Thanks again! I can hardwire the non-gateway eero Pros with great difficulty. As a home built in 1905-1906, there are no chases between floors and cabling would either have to penetrate the floor/ceiling (frowned upon by the Historic Commission), or penetrate outer walls and run up the exterior (frowned upon even more). So WiFi is it and hence my multiplicity of eero Pros. But backhaul is a real issue and you make a good point. Possibly eero tech support could be helpful to me.
As to a new Apple Home, I never used Home at all on the previous Apple network, so for me with the eero network it was a new setup. And I’ve “Removed Home” from the app and restarted everything from scratch at least 5 times…no joy. I’ve kept iOS up-to-date (now on v13.4.1) on all iOS devices so Home should be whatever is the most current version as well.
I’ve rebooted current and all previous routers about once a week. Shouldn’t be necessary but I’ve found performance tends to improve just after a reboot on every router I’ve had. I’ve asked the ISP to reboot my modem occasionally (I can’t get to it) but have seen no real need to do so…just a troubleshooting step to eliminate a possible trouble source.
I do like your IP addressing schemes and dedicated addresses. I’ll try that as a next step…something I’ve never done so that should be both a learning experience and reason for addition adult beverage consumption.
Thank you again for taking the time to assist…very encouraging!
B.S. it’s an issue with mesh networks. I have numerous other HomeKit devices and other devices linked through SmartThings with absolutely ZERO issues.
My Rachio 3 worked for months without a single connectivity OR HomeKit issue literally until the second it rebooted after firmware 631 was installed.
Nothing on my network changed — YOUR firmware changed. You guys need to own up and fix this mess.
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@TTeuer So why not backup to before 631??? What was added after that, that was so great, worth keeping this issue broken for this long…
It sounds like they just don’t want to fix it…
But then that makes me wonder… if I dig out one of my old Apple Airports, setup a hidden WiFi access point backhauled to the same network as my Eero network via Cat6, and connect my Rachio exclusively to that hidden WiFi network which will actually be on the same network… maybe that might keep it connected? Has this been attempted?
I just uploaded my .pcap
Status Report Since I Started This Thread On April 19, 2019.
IN EIGHT DAYS IT WILL BE ONE YEAR AGO!!!.. RACHIO FAIL
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Running into same problem since installing 631 firmware
I removed the Rachio from HomeKit, and now trying to reinstall it, entered the8 digit code, and not finding the accessory. Why did this firmware BREAK more than it FIXED?
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@franz how is this going? For over a year homekit hasn’t worked and rachio’s response has ranged from, “i don’t know what is wrong” to “we almost have a fix” to “it is apple’s fault”.
When I use your developer apis, I see
"homeKitCompatible":false,"model":"GENERATION3_16ZONE","name":"Rachio",
Which looks like homekit has been disabled. So it makes sense that Rachio is never discovered in the Home app. What is your plan for fixing the problem and what is the timeframe?
Looks to me like rachio disabled homekit in the firmware. See my previous post.
Yeah, this is absolute garbage… My Rachio 3 has been up and down for the past year, and for a product that is advertised with Homekit support this is unacceptable. However since it decided to update itself to firmware 631 it is not even working with HomeKit at all. At least previously I could reboot it and get a day or two out of it. In fact I installed a smart outlet so I could remotely power-cycle it to force it back online.
I too have a full Ubiquiti network installed with multiple access points, but I do NOT accept this is the problem, as the Rachio is always accessible via the app and online.
I agree that HomeKit support is basic at best, but that is all I wanted it for. The ability to be working in the garden and issue a Siri command to water or stop watering a zone that I am working on it the whole reason I bought it.
I agree with the earlier comment that a year down the track Rachio is still blaming Apple is garbage. All of my other devices just work - Rachio does not. This and the fact that the 631 firmware completely broke HomeKit integration tells you it’s Rachio’s problem.
@franz to whom should we direct a request for a refund on a faulty product?
Mayday.
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Great post. @MaydayDarkhorse
An app update came out today on IOS. You would think they would have fixed this issue. Nope. Still can’t add Rachio v3 to the Homekit, and Rachio remains silent on a fix. Pathetic. And I have neighbors who I was going to recommend this product to…
Try reserving it address for each MAC address for each device in the system, but then make sure you change the dhcp range for the router outside of the numbers you set the reserved ips to.
Example, set the router dhcp range from .10 through .100. Reserve your ip addresses in that range. Then change the dhcp range to .101 to .254…
That’s an example… I have had to do this myself as sometimes t\routers seem to have issues with identical devices on my router, even if they have different Mac addresses. This got me around that issue. Could be some of your issue.
Back to this HomeKit issue. I can’t get mine added to HomeKit either right now.
I’d suggest they look through all their code from the previous software to this one and see if anything in there changed to cause this.
I have a feeling there is more than one thing going on here. Could be mesh systems have issues, which has caused issues for some, and the new firmware caused more issues and hit everyone.
While HomeKit is important to me, it’s not making or breaking the product for me. The best part is I don’t have to hardly ever do anything with it in the first place.
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I can say with absolute certainty that if one of my mobile devices, especially my cellular Apple Watch, is on the same network as the controller when I leave my house and my device switches from my house WiFi to cellular it will often knock the controller offline from HomeKit. I’ll see all my other devices as they switch to connecting cellular will say updating and even say offline for a brief time but the controller will often stay offline. My workaround has been to place all my mobile devices on my 5ghz network and the controller on my 2.4 ghz network. But my Apple Watch will only do a 2.4 ghz network so I just leave WiFi off on it but if the watch is updated it turns wifi back on and if I forget to turn it back off it will knock the controller offline.
Per support email:
We’ve determined that the HomeKit integration has difficulty connecting to mesh/merged routers, depending on the physical configuration of the home network.
There is a way, however, to try to remedy this situation and re-establish the communication between your controller and HomeKit. To give it a try, please follow the steps below:
-
Factory reset the controller without removing from the Rachio account, using just the buttons (How do I factory reset my controller?)
You will not lose any settings. -
Perform a WiFi reset on your controller (How do I update Wi-Fi on my controller? Wi-Fi Reset) and make sure you are connected to the same network and frequency as your HomeKit device .
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Add Rachio as a HomeKit accessory (How do I use HomeKit with my Rachio?)
Its obvious they don’t know what is causing the issue, as this seems to be a canned response FYI, I do not have a mesh router/system, the HomeKit has worked fine for the 1 1/2yrs i have had it connected with my rachio, no hardware changes occurring, only major change was the latest firmware update to to rachio. 60 other random IOT devices in my home have 0 HomeKit issues, so it can be narrowed down to an issue with the rachio FW. Also, the steps outlined above did not resolve the issue. Only resolve will be issuing a fix firmware.
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