Orbi RB20 & iPhone/Macbook Intermittent Drops

[playituncleleo]

I've had an Orbi RBR20 w/ 2 RBS20 satelites for a few years now, and everything's been working great.

My mac and 2 iphones in my home recently started acting strange.  They'll show connection to the WiFi, still be able to control my smart lights, but lose all connection to the internet.

A quick router reboot, and they're all back online.  Sometimes they stay on for 15 minutes before dropping, sometimes for 5 hours.  But inevitably, for the past few weeks, a router reboot is required to have everything functioning properly.

[CrimpOn]

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@playituncleleo wrote:

still be able to control my smart lights, but lose all connection to the internet.

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Can you please share the brand of smart lights (there are so many).  A lot of IoT devices seem to function because of "cloud" connection, which implies there is an internet connection, but.......

Thanks

[playituncleleo]

Yes! They are philips hue bulbs hooked up thru a hue bridge.

I also have a Samsung SmartThings hub connected, but haven’t tested any of those devices when the internet is “down”

[CrimpOn]

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@playituncleleo wrote:
Yes! They are philips hue bulbs hooked up thru a hue bridge.

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This is a big help. Philips Hue bulbs use Zigbee to communicate with the Hue bridge. If the iPhone communicates directly with the Hue bridge, then internet access is not involved. (If you can control the Philips lights when not at home, that needs to be re-examined).

If this problem involved computers, I would want to go into an exploration of what it means by "no internet":

• Is this a DNS failure?
  (Where web browsers cannot resolve URL's into IP addresses)
• Can devices ping public IP addresses, such as ford.com or usc.edu?
  (or their respective IP addresses)

"I-things" are a mystery to me. Afraid I am not much help with this problem.

[playituncleleo]

Thanks!

How would I check if it’s a DNS/Public IP issue?

I’ll test it next time it drops out.

[CrimpOn]

this is where my lack of knowledge of "i-things" comes in.  On a Windows computer, I would open a DOS command window and start typing 'ping' commands to see if a connection to 50.59.171.118 works but "usc.edu" does not.  (An IP address does not require DNS resolution, but a URL does.)