HomeKit Any ideas? iHome outlets lose connectivity after router firmware updates

[Paco II]

So I've got a mix of iHome and Wemo homekit outlets. Whenever my router does a self update of its firmware (Nest wifi), the iHome outlets lose connectivity and I got the dreaded 'not responding' in the Home app. Restarting the router does nothing. Only unplugging them from the wall and replugging them in resolves it. But of course I need to be home to do that.

So why does it happen? My Wemo homekit outlets reconnect just fine to the router. As do all my other wired and wireless devices in the house. It's just the iHome outlets.

Any ideas?

 

[Itinj24]

So I've got a mix of iHome and Wemo homekit outlets. Whenever my router does a self update of its firmware (Nest wifi), the iHome outlets lose connectivity and I got the dreaded 'not responding' in the Home app. Restarting the router does nothing. Only unplugging them from the wall and replugging them in resolves it. But of course I need to be home to do that.

So why does it happen? My Wemo homekit outlets reconnect just fine to the router. As do all my other wired and wireless devices in the house. It's just the iHome outlets.

Any ideas?

FWIW, I had the iHome outdoor plug and the damn thing would never reconnect after a power outage or network update (eero Pro). Unlike yours though, the only way to get it to respond in HomeKit was to factory reset and re-add it. Extremely annoying. I left it behind when I moved and would never buy another. To answer your questions, I never found a solution to that problem. I just moved on to the Meross outdoor which is half the size, weight, twice the plugs and about 10 bux cheaper. I loved the Wemo Mini until they changed their app to cloud based sometime this summer. I couldn’t recommend them enough before but now simply unplugging it drops it from the Wemo app (still functional in HomeKit though-go figure). Such a simple device causing so much headache. I have an open ticket with tech support. I mainly use HomeKit but gonna need the Wemo app for firmware updates.

If you don’t have too many of them and it wouldn’t crush you financially, I’d ditch them and move on. So far the Meross outdoor has been phenomenal and I know they have indoor as well as power strips.

 

[waw74]

file a bug report at Wemo
it's poor coding on their part

It's probably not the software update on the router, but the reboot that happens as part of the update that's actually killing the connection.

I think the router doesn't announce that it's shutting down, so the Wemo doesn't actually close the wifi connection. So you plug still thinks it's connected, and is just there holding the phone going "hello?... hello?... I can't hear you, can you hear me? ... hello?"

I've got a couple small project boards that have built in wifi. Like an Arduino, called ESP32.
that was one of my biggest issues, If I rebooted my wifi, they wouldn't automatically re-connect. I had to write a routine that would check the status of the wi-fi connection, and if it had dropped attempt to re-connect.

 

[Paco II]

Just to clarify, the Wemo devices are fine, it's the iHome devices which are problematic. I do appreciate the post. I will plan to submit something to iHome but since it is not something I can make happen, I doubt much will be done.

file a bug report at Wemo
it's poor coding on their part

 

[dotme]

So why does it happen? My Wemo homekit outlets reconnect just fine to the router. As do all my other wired and wireless devices in the house. It's just the iHome outlets.

Any ideas?

My first thought is a potential DHCP lease issue of some kind. I have over a dozen iHome outlets and have never had to reset or power cycle them (They've never gone "No Response" on me in over a year). Could it be a compatibility issue between the iHome outlets and the DHCP server? I'm aware that would be unusual. If you don't have many of them, I wonder if giving them statics or reserve the outlet IPs via MAC address might be something to try. A pain to set up, but if that fixes it, it's money saved. I would definitely experiment with DHCP Server settings before throwing in the towel on the outlets.

 

[Paco II]

My first thought is a potential DHCP lease issue of some kind. I have over a dozen iHome outlets and have never had to reset or power cycle them (They've never gone "No Response" on me in over a year). Could it be a compatibility issue between the iHome outlets and the DHCP server? I'm aware that would be unusual. If you don't have many of them, I wonder if giving them statics or reserve the outlet IPs via MAC address might be something to try. A pain to set up, but if that fixes it, it's money saved. I would definitely experiment with DHCP Server settings before throwing in the towel on the outlets.

I am going to give DHCP reservation a try. Thanks for suggesting that!

 

[Moohooya]

I am going to give DHCP reservation a try. Thanks for suggesting that!

Did that work for you? Mine always go offline whenever my router reboots, which is super annoying. I did try assigning IP addresses for my devices but so far that seems to make no difference.

 

[Paco II]

Did that work for you? Mine always go offline whenever my router reboots, which is super annoying. I did try assigning IP addresses for my devices but so far that seems to make no difference.

It did not. In a different thread (or maybe Reddit) someone mentioned increasing DHCP pool. But I’ve decided to replace my iHome outlets entirely. Meross and Wemo have not exhibited this issue, so I will move to those entirely.

 

[dotme]

See above where I said "I have over a dozen iHome outlets and have never had to reset or power cycle them"?

LOL. It's like they heard me.

The day after Thanksgiving, I entered iHome hell after over a year of trouble-free operations. I'm still tracking this down, but I believe I have an Access Point that's starting to go bad.

Here's what I learned though: If the iHome outlet loses connection even briefly to WiFi, when it reconnects it always sends a DHCP request (without even being power-cycled). If that request fails (Maybe the DHCP server is still coming back online) it appears to continue to use the IP it already had (per DHCP specs) but.... the outlet also appears to stop advertising "_hap._tcp" service - which results in a No Response in HomeKit (HAP = HomeKit Access Protocol). This morning I lost two outlets. Could still see them on the network, ping them too, but they were No Response in HomeKit. The Discover app showed they were missing from the _hap._tcp list, and my DHCP server showed me I had 7 devices all request addresses at 9:43 last night. That's a sign that a WiFi router dropped, dumping several connected devices at once.

Since there have been no firmware updates in forever on the outlets, I have to blame my network. Something's wrong there, and the outlets are a symptom. I do think iHome has an issue with not advertising HAP if something goes wrong with a DHCP request though, and that's on them.

Because the issue is that they stop advertising HAP, the only solution is to power cycle the outlet. Rebooting routers won't fix that.

 

[Moohooya]

I'm still tracking this down, but I believe I have an Access Point that's starting to go bad.

Maybe, but I just replaced my router with a band new router and I get the same behavior that you have - once it loses network connectivity, it will be offline in HomeKit. Now I think about it, the device does respond in the iHomeControl app.