At least I dont think it's a hubitat issue. Has something changed recently with how Apple Home (by any or all of its various names) handles Matter over thread devices? I have had several Nanoleaf bulbs for a couple years now and they have been very stable for most of that time. All of a sudden they are dropping off, and going to blue tooth and not controlable with Home or Hubitat, just the Nanoleaf app. There havent been any updates to the Nanoleaf firmware, so I don't thinkits anything there. Any ideas? Thanks!
I have had this issue with the Nanoleaf christmas lights since they we're released. While I love nanoleaf stuff (have several connected via wifi to hubitat), they're matter implementation sucks. Support has been abysmal for this issue.
Yeah I had accidentaly tried the wifi version of these (those are horrible) and spent three months going back and forth with them coming up with every reason to say it wasn't them before they finally replaced them with these thread version. That was my request, as I had several that had been in uses for seveal year that ahad worked well for close to two years. Its just weird how all of a sudden they all have dropped to bluetooth, which is essentially useless. I guess I coud try and backdoor them through Home Assistant, but that seems like alot of hoops to go through, but I also dont want a bnch of wifi devices either. I guess I gould also try removing all of the bulbs, removing the integration to Home , reset and re add. if its not working now, I guess im not really loosing anything either.
Kind of funny, the laundry list of thing they said had to happen or not happen for the wifi bulbs to actually work included:
- No wifi or Zigbee devices within 25 feet.
- Couldn't be within 25 feet of the router.
- All other devices in the home had to use 2.5mhz,
- WiFi 5 or 6 could not be active in the home.
- All other devices could only use WPA2.
Are you part of the beta? If so, there is an integration that may help you....
I think that is a yes.. based on Clay's profile... might just need to make use of that clearance...
Not yet supported
Who needs HE support... when you have the Community... For a short period before legitimate support....
Hence saying they should join the beta
Yes I am in the beta. I sent you a message.
To clarify, for anyone that runs across this, these are the conditions that need to be met in your envirnment in order for their matter over wifi bulbs to actually function as intended.
That basically puts 99.9 percent of people using hubitat out of the running for using Nanoleaf matter. Seems like poor engineering as there are plenty of matter devices that do work normally with that surrounding traffic. (I say that as an observer and not as a programmer)
Those conditions were requirements of the WiFi bulbs not the Matter over Thread ones.
At least the matter over wifi. And thats what I was telling them, those limitations are just unreasonable in a modern smart home.
Until this week the matter over thread has worked fine.
Technially , the matter over wifi bulbs.
The main reason I use them is the RGB . I have several overnight automations that use red light, and I really like the color of red (and that I can get down to 2100K in CT mode) and the granular control of the brightness of those bulbs. For Color, Tapo is very similar, but they don't have as much control over brightness as the Nanoleafs.
I have a few of the NanoLeaf Thread bulbs (picked them up to play with Matter and liked the brightness so I left them installed) and did notice that they dropped off either Sunday or Monday night - reeabled them and for the moment they are still responding when requested.
I've taken myself out of the HomePod sphere, but resetting the thing helped with something else. No idea if this is you, HomePod wise.
Yeah, it was around sunday when I noticed it. I have two that I removed, reset and tried to re-add. I can get them into the Nanoleaf app fine, but they will not send the crededntials to home, hence they wont include in home. I did get one to include in home, but then hubitat never found it.
Mine is through AppleTv, and I have reset them both at least twice. I may need to just do a fullon factory reset. but that risks loosing WAF points.
Looks like the OS for the HomePod was released in May, but I’m guessing it was forced Sunday night. May just need to do a power down reboot of the Apple TV to force a reintialization of the OS.
Which specific model(s) of AppleTV devices are you using? Not all AppleTV devices have a Thread radio.
Does anyone know if the NanoLeaf Matter over Thread devices act as Thread Repeaters? If not, then having only one or two Apple TVs acting as Thread Border Routers/Repeaters may not be enough to create a strong Thread mesh network.
One possible issue with Thread is that there is no way to force it to use a specific channel/frequency to prevent it from conflicting with other 2.4GHz RF signals in your home. IIRC, you recently migrated your home network over to Ubiquiti UniFi, correct? If so, I am curious if you manually configured the UniFi 2.4GHz WiFi radios to only use channels 1, 6, and/or 11 with a 20MHz channel width? Also, make sure the UniFi features to automatically choose the WiFi channel and signal strength are disabled. The fewer 'automagic' changes happening, the better.
AppleTv 4k. It has thread. They have worked fine for almost 2 years until a week or so ago.
I dont believe they do. There are two Apple TV’s. Out of 7 total bulbs, five are within three feet of one of them. The two furthest out have been on par with the others. They were all reliable unril a week or so ago.
Yes, i did recently switch to Unifi. About a month ago. No, I didn’t configure the radios, those are still set up stock out of the box. I wasn’t aware that was a suggested practice. Could you elaborate on that for me?
Just to be clear to others who may not be familiar with which models of Apple TV 4K have Thread...
- Apple TV 4K (1st Edition) - released in 2017 - do NOT support Thread
- Apple TV 4K (2nd Edition) - released in 2021 - all models support Thread
- Apple TV 4K (3rd Edition) released in 2022 - WiFi only/64GB model does NOT support Thread
- Apple TV 4K (3rd Edition) released in 2022 - Ethernet+WiFi/128GB model does support Thread
Summary from Apple
Sure! Just like all home WiFi systems, care must be taken to ensure there is some free RF air space for Zigbee and Thread devices to be able to communicate without being interfered with by 2.4GHz WiFi signals. It is considered a best practice to make sure that all of your 2.4GHz WiFi Access Points are configured to only use channels 1, 6, and/or 11 with a 20MHz channel width. This provides some clear space for Zigbee/Thread to operate in as shown below.
As for the settings specific to UniFi APs, here is how my 2.4GHz radios are configured in my home.
It is best to disable UniFi's automatic channel optimization, as it will probably just change the channel and stomp all over your Zigbee/Thread mesh networks.
Here is an example of one of my AP's radio settings
These are the ones I have. I didn't realize there was another varient released the same year without. but both of mine do have the thread radios.
This is great info, thanks! So, probably a stupid question, but how do I know which channel is the best option? or is it just pick one? I don't have any zigbee left (yay!) and these are the only thread I have. From a mesh stand point its pretty linear, but everything is fairly close to the ATV's. I think Apple is releasing a new version later this year. If they do, and it has thread i'll likely pick one up as the primary and move one of the current ones to the back of the house.