HomeKit HomeKit issues...

[Nosoforos]

hi all,

My HomeKit experience is becoming quite frustrating lately. I’m encountering the following problems:

- one philips hue light in the living room (ceiling) constantly turns itself off and on. When it is turned off, it shows as unreachable in the Home app.
- two elgato energy plugs can suddenly no longer be controlled from the philips hue tap, even though they are assigned to a button together with the hue lights.
- I cannot add my Koogeek smart power strip to HomeKit anymore. Neither the home app nor the Koogeek app is able to find the device.

I tried resetting everything and starting over. The exact same problems remain... I have no idea what is causing this and am looking for some advice...

 

[dotme]

Always possible you have bad hardware I suppose (A voltage spike could have fried some items possibly?)

Cheapest test on that would be to swap out your living room bulb and see if the replacement behaves.

The only other thought I have... You have three protocols in play here. Hue uses Zigbee, Elgato uses Bluetooth LE and the Koogeek is WiFi I believe. All three protocols share the 2.4GHz spectrum - meaning that channel separation on the Zigbee bridge (Hue) and your WiFi router(s) is something to try and achieve to help prevent interference. The Hue bridge should also be at least 6-8 feet from the WiFi router for the same reason. If you share walls or are in very close proximity to neighbors, it's possible they also have devices that are crowding the spectrum a little.

Personally I've had miserable luck with Bluetooth LE and am in the process of replacing my Eve switches with Caseta because Bluetooth LE hasn't been reliable at all for me. To much of "No Response" in the Home app.

 

[Nosoforos]

Thanks for your input. Strange thing is everything worked great and then all of a sudden it didn’t. Interference could be a problem, although I wouldn’t expect things to behave as they do if that were the case. Fried items are not a real possibility, I have never experienced anything like that at all. But I will try to find time this weekend to try and find the root of this problem.

It’s just sad, I really love home automation and HomeKit, but this to me just shows I could never advice, for example, my parents to install any of these devices, since it would not make their lives ‘easier’, quite the contrary

 

[Nosoforos]

Update: somehow, everything now works again... I had already done a reset, after which things still weren’t working. So that wasn’t the solution. Must have been the iOS update then, I guess.

I’m glad things are working again, though my criticism of course remains. I mean, I kind of ‘like’ to solve these kind of problems, but for the average user it would be completely unacceptable that lights stop working after some software update or just for no apparent reason.

 

[Phil77354]

I have not had any issues with any of the HomeKit compatible products that I use, or with my HomeKit setup. I use Hue lights in several rooms, as well as an Ecobee thermostat and the Chamberlain garage door opener control.

I'm sure that I am using fewer of the capabilities of these products than are possible, but in simply connecting the lights and other devices to work together, I have found it to be straightforward and trouble free.

 

[Buadhai]

I was having horrible trouble with a Koogeek plug. It seemed that whenever I wanted to turn it on/off it was "Updating"; which could take an inconvenient length of time. Then I read that some HomeKit devices do not operate well with WiFi channels above 10 and with WiFi routers (like the AirPort Extreme) that attempt to adjust to conditions by changing the WiFi channel. I set my Extreme to use a single channel below 10. Haven't had a single issue with the Koogeek since.

 

[LiveM]

This is why Apple needs to continue the AirPort line, or integrate it into the Apple TV and/or HomePod.

 

[Buadhai]

This is why Apple needs to continue the AirPort line, or integrate it into the Apple TV and/or HomePod.

I agree. When I found out Apple was getting out of the router business I immediately bought an Extreme which replaced a functioning (but ugly) TP-Link router.

 

[x-evil-x]

sometimes rebooting the router makes everything work again also.