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Forum Discussion
XR500 - HomeKit issues
Hello,
I have recently installed a XR500 Nighthawk Pro Gaming Router and I have had issues with Apple HomeKit, specifically with my Lutron Caseta Smart Hub. I have serveral other HomeKit devices that have continued to work wonderfully, but they are either connect over Bluetooth or WiFi; the Smart Hub is the only one that connects over ethernet. I have CenturyLink fiber internet, so I have the XR500 configured to use PPPoE and a VLAN tag of 201 on the WAN (there is an issue with configuring the VLAN where it throws a 400 error when you go to apply it, but you can configure it using the telnet debug interface, but this is beside the point) and things have worked beautifully for everything but the Smart Hub when I use HomeKit. Speeds are great, gaming is great, but this has thrown a wrench in things. I can use the Lutron Caseta app and access and control the lights, my Google Home Mini can also access and control the lights. If I turn off WiFi on my iPhone and restart the Home app (the one built into iOS) I can also access and control my Smart Hub over HomeKit. I am assuiming this has something to do with that my iPhone would be communicating through my AppleTV, which also is connected over ethernet. This happens with my wife's iPhone, and both of our iPads. It seems that if the iOS device trys to access the device directly over WiFi it doesn't work, but if it goes through the AppleTV it works just fine.
I have explored all of the many settings that are included with the router, but I haven't found any that make a difference. I have tried reconfiguring the Smart Hub (both the hub and HomeKit) as well as the XR500. With the XR500, I have tried to restore it using a saving configuration file as well as resetting it up from scratch multiple times. I have updated the firmware to the most recent release as of 02/27/2018, which is V2.1.0.6.
Any help or insight any of you may have would be greatly appricated! I really, really like this router and don't want to return it.
Thanks!
18 Replies
- Hi mtthw, I haven't used any devices in that nature so I'll advise as best I can.
It sounds like you have the Smart Hub & the Apple TV both configured as Hubs to control everything, is that the case? If so they could be conflicting which makes sense why it works sometimes on one or the other. If you only make the Smart Hub the hub for Smart Kit does that resolve the issue? Apologies if I completely missed the point.
Also have you contacted Netgear Support via their phone line regarding this issue?Hi Fraser,
So, I need both to make it all work. The Lutron Caseta Smart Hub is the only smart hub that talks to the lights that I have in my home. The way HomeKit works is on a local level, unless you have an AppleTV or a iPad configured to be a hub for remote access. This means, that when I am connected to the WiFi on my home network, my iPhone is trying to communicate directly with the Lutron Caseta Smart Hub to control the lights from the Apple Home app. When I turn off the WiFi in my iPhone and I use the same Apple Home app, my phone communicates through the AppleTV to the Lutron Caseta Smart Hub and it all works just fine.
Since the AppleTV is connected through ethernet and not WiFi on the network when everything works, I think that there is something going on with the connection from the WiFi to the ethernet ports in the XR500. Maybe not all of the packets are being transferred between interfaces? I’m unsure.
I have not contacted the phone support yet. This is a extremely technical problem that I didn’t want to try to explain over the phone to someone. Jason N from Netgear PMed me and I have provided contact info to him to help get to the bottom of this. Please let me know if there is anything I can provide you to help you out if you want to look into it further. Thanks for your help!
- Hi Matthew, thanks for the clarification. So it is a WiFi issue essentially?
What I would start by doing is giving your Apple TV a static IP address in Settings > Setup > LAN Setup. It may be that because it will class it as a different device when wired compared to on WiFi that it is getting confused. If you set a static IP this may prevent that. Also are you using Smart Connect so there is only one SSID?
If Jason has further suggestions do let me know!
Hi mtthw,
I am going to PM you to collect more information on this and also collect your contact information.
- Jason N
