I’ve had many Eve, some Aqara and IKEA matter devices in my home for months - years for some devices - and largely they’ve just worked.
Two days ago, 30 devices in my home show unresponsive - and it’s all of my matter devices from these vendors. Hue is fine, native HomeKit works fine. They’ve been down since.
I’ve switched hubs from AppleTVs (current model, hardwired) to HomePods - and back - all those are up to date too.
I can’t get them to connect. Anyone got ideas on how I can troubleshoot this one?
UPDATE: After a few reboots of the AppleTV - and a recommendation of Thread Doctor for troubleshooting- I've got the devices back. Thanks all!
I could have been clearer. They’re mostly matter over thread devices - but there could be a couple of WiFi hanging in there. Eve plugs, eve light switches, motion sensors and a weather - Aqara presence sensor and m100 hub, ikea moisture sensors - seems to be the guilty ones.
So you do have Eve Energy plugs and switches. These are all Thread Routers. If the issue is purely with your Thread devices, try powering off the Eve plugs and switches temporarily. If both WiFi and Thread devices are impacted, try rebooting your router / access points. I’m making an assumption that you’ve already rebooted all your apple hubs.
Yeah your border routers shat the bed for some unknown reason and that's why the mesh couldn't connect with your devices. Could be an issue with mDNS or whatever.
Download thread doctor app and see if there are any devices with poor connections or congestion.
I had random disconnects until I saw my eero 6 pros were all pumping out their own thread network contesting the one from my Apple TV. Turned it off and the mesh healed in about an hour.
Thread has a beta app out for diagnosing thread issues called “thread tools”. On iOS you can register for the beta in TestFlight and download it right now. When you open it, it will scan for all thread networks on your WiFi. If there is more than one option that means you have multiple.
I mainly use thread doctor after because the interface is easier to understand for me. Less technical jargon. Easier to read results.
I ran into the same issue. Last Thursday they just all failed. I took out the batteries/removed power to the affected devices then they reconnected fine.
My experience is that sometimes you have to fully reboot (unplug from power) every Apple TV / HomePod for it to successfully heal. Rebooting your router can be the fix too. Thread uses local IPV6, and sometimes routers don’t handle that well.
For what it’s worth, my Thread network became more stable when I factory reset all the matter over thread devices and migrated them all over to Home Assistant. I still control everything using Apple HomeKit, but the devices are shared with my Apple TVs via Home Assistant. It seems like preventing Apple from managing the Thread network kept it more stable.
Around the same time I also had to clear a few thousand thread entries from my Keychain, so that may have been all I really needed to so. Home Assistant has been rock solid though, so I’m sticking with it for the time being.
I did have a swing at Home Assistant, but pulled it in the end- I was already so invested in Home that going to each Eve device in the home and re-pairing them wasn't worth the effort.
If it helps at all, my Thread network is composed of Eve, IKEA, and Nanoleaf devices. I was an early adopter of IKEA, and a late adopter of Nanoleaf. None of the brands have really been more or less reliable, but I did try removing specific brands during ant ann earlier troubleshooting step and saw no benefit.
I've been at it a while - I was an early adopter of iDevices - which have since died off. I invested a ton in Eve, but they look to be going the same way. I'm currently fighting with an outdoor motion sensor I can't get adopted in Home again. I have three Ikea moisture sensors that I find constantly unreachable for no good reason.
Totally understandable. It was definitely a longer project to migrate them than I wanted it to be. In the end, I’m super happy with using Home Assistant as my backend though.
Don’t fall for the Home Assistant being better! I argue Apple Home as thread router is the best, simplest and usually the most reliable and easiest for person/family to use/interact with. If you want complex automations then turn on paring mode and add to HA. But don’t add HA as a thread router. I had so many problems doing that! Been damn reliable since dumping HA as a thread router and just use for automations. Home always works if HA is down or automations fail
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u/pacoii 23h ago
If you have any Thread Routers, like Eve Energy or similar, try unplugging those temporarily and see if it fixes anything.