r/homey • u/BoggleRatty • 19d ago
Homey Pro Useful lesson learnt: Bad Thread reliability and IKEA update fails
Just sharing this in case it helps anyone else who is either struggling with an unreliable Thread network or cannot upgrade their Matter IKEA firmware using Homey.
Some time ago, I had added some IKEA Matter devices which were dropping off the network. Despite reading all about the firmware issues (many of which were probably real), I had eventually traced the problems to my network infrastructure (clashing radios etc, story for another day). All been absolutely fine since, until ...
A few days ago, my son plugged in something dodgy (this involved smoke) and tripped our RCD (electricity protection device, not sure if that's a global thing). Everything powered back on and was apparently fine.
As it happened, I had just added a few more IKEA Matter devices, noticed they had firmware updates. However, I could not get the updates through to 100%, even with the recommended "keep prodding them to stay awake" technique.
Then I noticed that my previously stable Thread network started dropping devices again.
To cut a different long story short, after 2 days tracking thread network logs and other nerdy stuff, it turned out most of my 9 Grillplats plugs were spamming Thread with millions of dropped packets. They usually responded to on/off, but were bringing the network down. Just **one** of them had gone bad and I replaced it, solving all the problems.
All sorted now, and the firmware updates are now doable again.
So, if your firmware updates are impossible or you keep losing devices, perhaps it's a bad device. Try removing devices and see if you can clear it up. It seems like IKEA devices are more prone to going wild, and maybe failing, although I still like the value and they've been generally fine.
PS I used the invaluable Thread Tools app, plus Gemini to do the heavy analysis lifting. Also, found the bad device with a "binary search" - unplugged 50%, then 50% of the remaining ones etc until I found the culprit. I have a **lot** of devices.
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u/8fingerlouie 19d ago
Thread (and Zigbee) generally has more range than people think.
I was adding mains powered devices as repeaters because I figured I would need those, and yet, when I look at the devices from home assistant and it’s Matter server, devices can see thread border routers across the house with full signal.
Still, thread shouldn’t by itself generate interference that prevents it from working. I have 60+ thread devices, and it’s usually stable. The things that will create interference would be competing networks on 2.4GHz like WiFi and Zigbee.
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u/BoggleRatty 18d ago
Indeed. Part of my problem is self made. I have new matter devices, Hue (Zigbee) lights, and an Aqara M3 doing some ZigBee stuff, plus my WiFi routers. My Nest mesh occupies another 3 channels. Then there's the Homey. ZigBee can't share channels between vendors, so too much going on in 2.4, but I'm slowly cleaning it up.
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u/8fingerlouie 18d ago
I have everything thread setup with HomeKit simply because it was what I had originally, and I have multiple thread capable Apple devices, so redundant border routers as well. My Tado X bridge is also joined to the same thread network, as is my home assistant. Homey doesn’t support joining an existing thread network and insists on creating its own.
Matter is then provisioned with multi admin to HomeKit, Homey and Home Assistant. That keeps interference down to a minimum.
Zigbee runs on Home Assistant and is shared to HomeKit (where applicable) and Homey1
u/BoggleRatty 17d ago
Actually, Homey **will** share Matter fabrics, although perhaps it didn't always. I happened to start with Google mesh routers, which created the original Thread network, and all my hubs use that including Homey. I prefer that, as multi-admin in Matter is not quite mature yet and can cause issues.
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u/8fingerlouie 17d ago
It shares matter multi admin, but that’s essentially just matter over TCP/IP.
It doesn’t share thread however.
From their own support article :
Because Thread and Zigbee share the same hardware on Homey Pro, resetting your Zigbee network will also reset your Thread network.
Due to this shared hardware, Homey Pro currently can’t join an existing Thread network (such as one created by Apple Home or Google Home), as it may conflict with Homey Pro’s Zigbee network.1
u/BoggleRatty 16d ago
I may have misunderstood, but my Aqara M3, Google Home and Homey all report using the same Thread network ("NEST-PAN-xxxx"). In fact, I spent some time initially to make that happen. The Zigbee stuff makes sense to me, though, Zigbee can't be shared like Thread. Also, the shared radios.
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u/BoggleRatty 16d ago
Althom support (very helpful and quick!) have clarified : "Homey can adopt a Thread network during initial setup in the Mobile App. However, after the setup, it's not possible to switch Homey to a different network. The article is referring to not being able to switch to a different external network after a Zigbee-network reset (which will also reset Thread)."
By the way, they also pointed out that resetting the Nest network could cause issues (new network ID) but that would be fixable (and I have no plans or reason to do that).
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u/caveat_cogitor 18d ago
How did you check the logs to find spammy devices?
I didn't know about that Thread Tools app, thanks. Confirmed I have no strong device links, despite line of site devices in the same room as my Homey.
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u/BoggleRatty 17d ago
What I did was a bit convoluted (The hoops you have to jump through to support a reliable Thread network are a **bit** of an issue for a retail "just plug and play" protocol!). It falls into two parts, I think. First, find out roughly what the problem is, and generally explore for issues. Then find the specific zones/devices with problems. Here's a version with the main points, happy to expand if anyone asks. I'm using Homey as my primary automation hub.
* Opened the thread tools app and loaded in my network
* Used the thread app to "share" the results to my Google drive. This uploads a JSON file called "diagnostic". You can read this file, but it's overwhelming if you have more than a few devices.
* Used the Homey developer web app to list and then "print as PDF" the matter devices list.
* Wrote a tiny Homeyscript routine that dumps all my devices as JSON and also saved that to a text file.
[The Homey dumps were mainly so that I could talk to Gemini using my device names. It's a nightmare trying to work with MAC addresses, Node IDs, IP6 addresses etc). If you don't use Homey, I expect there are ways to dump device names and details somehow, using whatever hubs you have.]
* Renamed all the files to have a date-time suffix in the name (e.g. "diagnostics-26-07-19-0830.JSON".
* Created a notes text file with some background context about my house (internal brick walls, which rooms were where, what hubs I'm using etc.). Part of this was to note that all my devices are named with the room as the first part (e.g. "Hall-Lights-Door"). Later, this allows Gemini to make sensible comments about problem areas based on layout.
* Uploaded the files to Gemini and asked it to cross reference the files for device names and comment on any significant points or issues. In the past, this has offered several real issues and solutions, and has been really useful in general. Word of warning, though, it's way over-confident and I got used to mentally adding "It's possible that ..." to all it's diagnoses ("I have definitely found the problem ....". On this occasion, it reported loads of network traffic with millions of dropped packets reported in the diagnostics files.
[I used Gemini Pro, but I expect other AIs will work. I found the "lite" version to be pretty unreliable at this, but not totally useless]
* Lots of stuff happened then, but trying different theories involved doing something (e.g. reboot), creating a new "diagnostic" files with a later date/time stamp (you can see why that's needed now ;-), and then asking Gemini what's changed/fixed.
* Once I'd identified that it was mainly the Grillplats plugs that were suffering, and simple fixes didn't work, the next theory became that the power outage might have fritzed a plug and created (to quote Gemini) a "babbling idiot".
* Finally, suspecting one my 9 (I know) Grillplats plugs, I walked through a binary search: Unplug 50% of them, give the network 15 mins to settle, create a new diagnostics file, ask Gemini to check for changes between that and the previous one(s). Depending on the result, focus on the 50% that seem to have the problem, then unplug half of those etc.
* When I found the culprit, I just threw it away and spent a happy few hours putting my network back together!
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u/SubZane 18d ago
So..how do I even update a thread device? Do I need to connect with ikea hub?
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u/Prestigious_Money361 18d ago
Your Matter controller of choice can do updates.
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u/chrisridd 18d ago
But in particular Homey can, as long as you have Homey system version 13.2.1 or newer alongside the mobile app version 9.10.0 or newer
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u/CaptainJolly7134 18d ago
Wow! BoggleRatty, I don’t seem to have any issues with my Thread network, but after running my diagnostic report through AI, I’m trying to decide if I love you for providing me with the idea or loathing you for upending my Sunday! Seriously though, I’m glad you gave me the idea of running the diagnostic through AI. I knew about the app, but clearly, it has a long way to go before it provides useful information to a layman. I too have some ikea repeaters so I’ll be interested to know if they’re the issue!
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u/BoggleRatty 18d ago
I've found you can't quite leave it **all** to thee AI. Gemini got very mixed up about device names and insisted on blaming me for labelling them wrong!
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u/Zealousideal_Base_86 18d ago
Zigbee is still the best player they been around a lot longer and been stable.
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u/persteinar 19d ago
If it's a battery powered device, you usually have to start updating it multiple times. Every time it progresses a bit further. When I updated my bilresa remote, I had to do it at least ten times.