HomeKit WeMo Doorbell HomeKit Drops… Only At Night?

[Itinj24]

Does anyone know why a HomeKit Doorbell Camera would drop connection from HomeKit only between the hours of about 0200 and 0700?

I already returned one hoping it was a defect but the second one is doing the same nonsense. Works solid all day, then I start getting the Offline/Online notifications every couple minutes during the aforementioned hours. Boggles my mind. It’s the only device that does this. It’s also showing connected to Wi-Fi the whole time.

I have an eero Pro 6, that’s it’s connected to, literally staring at it, line of sight through my front door window, from my foyer, about 10 feet away.

Anyone have any ideas? Once again, this is the only device doing this.

Just a snippet of what goes on all night:

 

[dotme]

Troubleshooting that is going to be a challenge. If you have a computer you can use, I'd download pingplotter or some other free tool and ping it overnight, reviewing the logs in the morning. If the pings never die, then it's dropping _hap_tcp advertising, which might conceivably be the routers/APs doing some overnight stuff that's killing mDNS traffic. If the pings do die, then could it be DCHP related? You could try extending the lease times (assuming they are short) to see if that helps. One other possibility I can think of is either some external wireless interference that happens overnight (neighbor's WiFi creating wireless noise) or, more unlikely, some kind of doorbell transformer voltage fluctuation overnight. No chance of condensation on cool nights affecting the contacts in the doorbell mount I suppose?

Is it like the Logitech where there's a USB socket on it? Could you bring it indoors for a night and plug it into USB power and see if it still drops?

Good luck with this one...

 

[Itinj24]

Troubleshooting that is going to be a challenge. If you have a computer you can use, I'd download pingplotter or some other free tool and ping it overnight, reviewing the logs in the morning. If the pings never die, then it's dropping _hap_tcp advertising, which might conceivably be the routers/APs doing some overnight stuff that's killing mDNS traffic. If the pings do die, then could it be DCHP related? You could try extending the lease times (assuming they are short) to see if that helps. One other possibility I can think of is either some external wireless interference that happens overnight (neighbor's WiFi creating wireless noise) or, more unlikely, some kind of doorbell transformer voltage fluctuation overnight. No chance of condensation on cool nights affecting the contacts in the doorbell mount I suppose?

Is it like the Logitech where there's a USB socket on it? Could you bring it indoors for a night and plug it into USB power and see if it still drops?

Good luck with this one...

Much appreciate this lengthy thought out reply. All interesting occurrences. Yes it does a have a USB port and that’s a great idea to try. Come to think of it, now I remember my Logitech doorbell did this as well so it’s probably not the actual doorbell. Something else is going on. But then again, my Nest Hello did not exhibit this behavior. Gotta look into all this further. Thanks again!

Edit*. Just happened again at exactly 2am. I’d likely rule out condensation. It’s way too coincidental that the time it starts is precise.

 

[corgidor]

I have this doorbell and it never reconnnects on its own after a router reboot - maybe that’s what’s going on? Do you have a scheduled reboot or maybe it’s doing updates or something?

 

[Itinj24]

I have this doorbell and it never reconnnects on its own after a router reboot - maybe that’s what’s going on? Do you have a scheduled reboot or maybe it’s doing updates or something?

My network definitely isn’t doing this. I don’t even think it’s the doorbell anymore, since the Logitech did this as well. The doorbell is the only device that’s going offline during these times. Actually, it’s not even going offline, it’s just going no response in HomeKit while showing online with regards to Wi-Fi. Everything else in HomeKit is stable.

I did try a manual router reboot and the doorbell did reconnect itself after.

 

[Itinj24]

Just an update on this in case anyone is interested…

I completely bypassed my wall mounted doorbell chime box. Meaning I took it off the wall and wired the doorbell direct to the transformer. Night and day difference. Since I did that yesterday afternoon, I haven’t had one overnight disconnect, or any disconnect at all for that matter. Stayed solidly connected all night and the live feed even comes up much snappier. ~2 seconds when connected over LTE from my job. I’m wondering if the wall chime was drawing too much power. Maybe my transformer is old and weak. Still baffled as to why this only happened between the hours of 2 am to 7 am. Do transformers have an overnight sleep mode??? Lol.

Bad part is, the chime on HomePods feature is completely unreliable. I’m guessing this is Apple software at its finest. So I’m gonna try a workaround by downloading a doorbell chime sound on Apple Music and attach it to all my HomePods as a scene. Then create an automation in the Eve app that runs that scene when the doorbell is pressed. Hopefully that works. I’m going to also replace my transformer and see if that improves the doorbell performance. I just have to find the sucker lol.

 

[dotme]

Glad you got it solved. The 2am drop will remain a mystery - the only thing I could think of would be if there was a voltage drop to the entire house due to something happening in the neighborhood and the drop was enough to cause the transformer to drop too.

Our HomePods are reasonably reliable on the doorbell press, but there is a little lag. Same with our Apple Watches, but then we don't really like people so our doorbell doesn't ring often

 

[Itinj24]

Glad you got it solved. The 2am drop will remain a mystery - the only thing I could think of would be if there was a voltage drop to the entire house due to something happening in the neighborhood and the drop was enough to cause the transformer to drop too.

Our HomePods are reasonably reliable on the doorbell press, but there is a little lag. Same with our Apple Watches, but then we don't really like people so our doorbell doesn't ring often

Haha you’s and us alike. Most people suck lol.

I wish I just had lag with the HomePod chime. Mine works for a few minutes after installing a doorbell but then fails thereafter indefinitely. Tried resetting all the toggles off/on but for some odd reason, one of my HomePods just refuses to toggle off. I toggle it off and it goes back on instantly. Rebooting didn’t help. Gotta factory reset I presume.

Anyways, all that said, I returned the WeMo today for the second time. I was within two days left of my return period and had to make a move. Two reasons:

Notifications are completely sporadic. Missed quite a few this morning. My kids leaving for school (very important one) and my cleaning lady, GC and appliance repairman approaching and entering my house. Then just as I was removing it from my wall this afternoon, they were very reliable and often. This is an issue I was reading on Reddit with a lot of users.

Night vision should be called night blindness. Can’t see a thing beyond my front steps. Total darkness. I’m comparing to my Logitech Circle 2’s which I think have a pretty decent night vision. Can’t even make out shapes with the WeMo 10 feet in front of it at night. I guess the only thing I really liked about it was the ultra wide FOV.

I just picked up the 2nd Gen Google Nest wired to go with my Starling Hub. I tried four different doorbells (Ring Pro original, Logitech View, WeMo and Nest Hello w/Starling ) and so far the Nest has been hands down the best all around. Now that the 2nd Gen supports HKSV via Starling, I have to give it a fair shake. Just wish they kept the original FOV. This one looks to be narrower and my property is wide in the front.

 

[mpainesyd]

Like many others I am having problems with Homekit Automations not working after the OS16 update. This also seemed to happen at night. I speculate that it is associated with an Original Homepod going to sleep while it is acting as a primary Home hub and corrupting the Homekit data/settings.
Last night I set the Homepod to play music continuously and the overnight automations worked. I am crossing my fingers that, in my case, this has fixed the problem.
Maybe do this experiment with the doorbell?
Unfortunately it is not possible to disable a Homepod as a Home Hub, other than unplugging it and relying on an Apple TV or iPad as the primary hub.

 

[Itinj24]

Like many others I am having problems with Homekit Automations not working after the OS16 update. This also seemed to happen at night. I speculate that it is associated with an Original Homepod going to sleep while it is acting as a primary Home hub and corrupting the Homekit data/settings.
Last night I set the Homepod to play music continuously and the overnight automations worked. I am crossing my fingers that, in my case, this has fixed the problem.
Maybe do this experiment with the doorbell?
Unfortunately it is not possible to disable a Homepod as a Home Hub, other than unplugging it and relying on an Apple TV or iPad as the primary hub.

Hmm interesting. I did resolve the issue with my doorbell by bypassing the wall mounted chime box. Not sure why it only happened during the night hours though. The chime box is mechanical and only connected to the transformer and doorbell. The only thing I’m afraid of by having the OG HomePods run all night is the heating issues. Still worry about them considering their past and bad updates lol.

 

[mpainesyd]

Hmm interesting. I did resolve the issue with my doorbell by bypassing the wall mounted chime box. Not sure why it only happened during the night hours though. The chime box is mechanical and only connected to the transformer and doorbell. The only thing I’m afraid of by having the OG HomePods run all night is the heating issues. Still worry about them considering their past and bad updates lol.

Apple has just released tvOS16.1 and homepodOS16.1. Both update notes mention Homekit so hopefully they will fix the many issues that users are having.
For the last few days forcing my Homepods to stay awake (music on repeat with near-zero volume) has fixed my automation problems. I will disable this and see if the problems reoccur with 16.1.

 

[Itinj24]

Apple has just released tvOS16.1 and homepodOS16.1. Both update notes mention Homekit so hopefully they will fix the many issues that users are having.
For the last few days forcing my Homepods to stay awake (music on repeat with near-zero volume) has fixed my automation problems. I will disable this and see if the problems reoccur with 16.1.

I haven’t had the time to update yet but I hope it fixes some things.

I think now with Matter rolling out, Apple has to up their game to stay competitive and that’s why we’re seeing all these HomeKit improvements rolling out too. Now that Google and Alexa users will be able to use Apple products in their platform, they have to sweeten it. I’m really looking forward to that HomeKit architectural re-code that we have yet to see.