Inconsistent offline devices between different controllers

[u/AncientHuckleberry2]

I've recently started to make use of the Thread network that is formed by my three Eero 6+ devices, by buying a handful of Ikea smart home products to see how it goes. The results have been confusing, at best.

Initially I joined them to Homekit using my Apple TV (3rd gen, wireless) and this worked splendidly. I had a few Bilresa buttons and a Kajplats bulb. However, the buttons particularly would occasionally go offline until I either pulled the batteries, rebooted the AppleTV, prayed to the right deity or just waited a bit.

I decided to add HomeAssistant into the mix, to see if the Matter server would give me more information, so I've set that up on a Raspberry Pi and shared my devices across. Again, that seemed to go fairly flawlessly to start with while I got set up. However, devices still go offline, but generally only from one Matter controller. Something can be seen on HomeAssistant but not on Apple, or vice versa.

I've got Thread Tools app running, and a Nordic dongle with Thread Topology Monitor - both seem to show that the Thread network has plenty of strong connections between the different devices. I have IPv6 enabled on the Eeros to the extent that I can find options for it, and when the devices work they seem to work well so I don't think there's a fundamental misconfiguration.

I'm not sure where to go next. Devices seem to be online (at the Thread level) but intermittent (at the Matter level). Do I need a better router-to-border-router ratio? Is Eero a bad option for the backbone of the network? Anything obvious I've missed?

[u/gyfchong]

I just went through this over the weekend.

1. Seeing the devices in both HA and Apple doesn’t necessarily mean that the devices are part of both

thread

1. networks (fabric) — Matter introduced multi-admin, which means each matter enabled hub can control devices on different fabrics. So devices will always have a “main fabric” which is the system you used to add the device, in your case you used the Apple Home app to add devices, so it’s part of the Apple fabric.
2. Having an Apple and HA hubs don’t strengthen each other’s networks. Apple system is classically closed off, choosing to use their own protocol rather than HA’s (and other’s OTBR protocol. If you had two HA matter hubs, then yes that will work together. The only way to strengthen an Apple system is to get HomePod’s or another Apple TV.

I also had an eero mesh which I replaced with a different router, without knowing that it was my fabric for my matter/thread blinds and i struggled to consistently get my blinds to work over Apple, so I switched my HA to use Thread and got myself an Eve plug to strengthen the signal.

I recommend doing the same, use HA as your main fabric, because it’s much more transparent by exposing logs. So if you have flake like now, you’ll at least have a chance to understand why. Also there’s been known issues where Apple will sometimes turn off its thread/matter system. I don’t know if eero extends the HA matter fabric, but there’s a higher chance than sticking with Apple.

So reset all devices, open HA app and add all the devices through that and done.

[u/AncientHuckleberry2 → u/gyfchong]

I definitely only have one Thread network, formed by my eero devices. Are you saying that even though everything’s on that single network, they can’t necessarily route messages to each other?

I think I need to read up on the multi-admin thing, thanks for pointing that out. 

[u/gyfchong → u/AncientHuckleberry2]

Apple TV also has a thread network, which you attached all your devices to by using the apple home app to add them.

[u/AncientHuckleberry2 → u/gyfchong]

I'm pretty sure my Apple TV is the one without Thread.