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Forum Discussion
Orbi RBK853 with Elgato Key Lights
Hello all. I thought I would share this in case someone else finds it usrful. I recently installed an RBK853 (base + two satelities) in my home (switching from a prior Google WiFi system). Ever...
Any progress on this?
packet_gnome wrote:Hello all.
I thought I would share this in case someone else finds it usrful. I recently installed an RBK853 (base + two satelities) in my home (switching from a prior Google WiFi system). Everything worked well with the switchover EXCEPT that my Elgato Key Lights (WiFi-enabled lighting system that is just awesome) did not work (not visible on the network) after switching to the Orbi setup. Without being able to "see" the lights from the Elgato Control Center, you cannot control them. This was close to a deal-breaker for me, as I use these lights a lot.
Long story short, after some troubleshooting I determined that the Orbi system needed to have IPv6 enabled in order for the Elgato key Lights to work. By default, it seems that the RBK853 setup has IPv6 disabled by default, and did not appear to be flooding the IPv6 ND messages needed for the Elgato lighst to work. Once I enabled IPv6, everything suddenly was fine and stable.
One question I do have if anyone can shed some light - enabling Guest Networking on the RBK853 seems to disable IPv6. With the amount that I use these key Lights, disabling IPv6 is not an option for me. Does anyone know if IPv6 can be enabled along with Guest Networking support on RBK853?
Cheers,
Dave
So just an update on my end. Enabling IPv6 got the lights to appear sporadically, so that's a piece of it, but still wasn't reliable. But they really don't like working with the ax endpoints at all. I fired up an old airport express, plugged it in with an ethernet cable to the satellite, created an old wifi 4 b/g/n network for them to connect to, and magic, it all works again.
If you have a mesh setup, it depends on which AP you connect through on your laptop or phone, vs. which ones the lights are using. It seems like the v6 briding does not always work reliably over the mesh (lights can be missing). If they are all on the same AP, it works a treat.
Cheers,
Dave
Yeah, mine were on the same AP as my computer, but they are on 2.4 and the computer is 5, and connectivity was intermittent (they'd show up then disappear in control center). Putting them on a separate 2.4 b/g/n network plugged into the AP made it all work. It's possible they would have stabilized...maybe i was just impatient :-).
I figured out how to turn on ipv6 and still preserve/force use of my own pihole for dns blocking (that was a bit of an adventure). Was rather surprised it was hidden in advanced rather than just on the regular wireless pages.
And I can confirm the issue with packets not routing between the AP's - I have that problem with airplay/itunes/appleTV's a lot. The ax units are definitely better than the ac ones, and your hint about ipv6 also seems to have helped that work better too (may be anecdotal).
It's disappointing that elgato is flaky like this (and doesn't document that ipv6 is required), and disappointing that orbi still has issues routing the packets properly.
All's well that ends well, thanks for the original pointer.
Can you please detail a little more what to do with the airport/extra router. I have an old router, how do I set it up with the Orbi to control the Key lights? Do I have to put the old router in a special mode? Can a computer on the Orbi network still control it?
- Make sure you have ipv6 turned on. With that on it just worked for me.
Sure, you put the router in bridge mode, but create a new wireless network with a different ssid. The lights connect to it, but the computer will connect to them through the bridged network.
ipv6 did not solve it for me, and I'm not a fan of turning it on your network unless you really need it (which is extremely rare) and know what you're doing.