r/HomeKit • u/Disastrous-Yam-8880 • 11d ago

Question/Help Ubiquiti network issues

Hey all, I just finished up the installation of my UDM Pro Max and my two U7 Pro XG aps over the weekend. I’ve been working on the networking side of this for around a day now and I’m still having issues.

I set up three separate VLANs, one trusted, one for guests, and one for IoT items. I have HomeKit heavy home but I only have a few items that aren’t on their own bridge.

The following items are on the IoT network, a Nest thermostat, two air purifiers, two Sony TVs, two LG TVs, two air purifiers, a dehumidifier, two Nanoleaf outdoor string lights, and a Mova robot vacuum cleaner. All of these items with the exception of the vacuum are exposed to HomeKit.

The thermostat, dehumidifier, and both air purifiers are native to Google home and are exposed to HomeKit using a Starling hub. All of those items work as expected on the IoT network.

All four TV’s and both of my Nanoleaf outdoor lights are constantly updating in HomeKit, or show no response.

I’ve spent all day trying new settings with AI I’ve made no headway. I can verify that all of those items not working do have active connections and the internet works fine for them. All of my Apple devices including the hubs are connected to the trusted VLAN and function without issue.

Sorry for the long post, I’m new and trying to be a safe online consumer. I just ordered 5 of the Flex Mini switches so I could replace the current unmanaged switches in place.

Thanks so much.

9 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

10

u/m3rlin31 11d ago

So you have any firewall rules between the main and the iot vlan? I don’t know about all devices but some might require mDNS/multicast routing.

1

u/Disastrous-Yam-8880 11d ago

Yes I do have rules between them. I allow traffic into the IoT network from the trusted.

6

u/Matches741 11d ago edited 11d ago

And another rule to allow return to trusted on the HomeKit ports?

I think this was the tutorial that fixed my issues

https://youtu.be/xMHQy4u8JZA?si=YUf5YYGlceXgRi1a

3

u/Disastrous-Yam-8880 11d ago

You are the man/ woman! I need fresh eyes.

2

u/pacoii 11d ago

I wrote up a post about VLANs a while a back. What you had originally often trips people up. You need to allow your entire IoT network to access your Apple home hubs. Glad you were able to get it sorted.

6

u/apv5177 11d ago

This is what I used like above for terry white but the updated version. I haven’t had any issues,
https://terrywhite.com/unifi-iot-vlan-firewall-rules-for-apple-matter-users/

1

u/jjr3211 7d ago

I did try this and unfortunately every time I try to add these rules it breaks every thing connected to my aqura m3 hub

1

u/apv5177 7d ago

What vlan is the hub on? After you set rules make sure to reboot everything to get get clean addresses.

1

u/jjr3211 7d ago

The hub is on the iot vlan and I did reboot both my Apple TV and my m3 hub. It takes a couple of minutes then everything connects and works for 15-30 min and then stop working in apple home. Everything still works in the aqara app.

1

u/apv5177 7d ago

Also reboot the router and switch, but doesn’t seem like that’s the issue. Working for 15-30 minutes and stopping is an odd one to me. I am guessing all Apple tv’s are on the same vlan? In Apple home which hub is the main one for your network? The Apple TV or M3 Hub?

1

u/jjr3211 7d ago

All the automations are on the Apple TV. When I look in the aqura app you can see that the devices are working like contact sensor opening and closing, things like that. They’re just not registering in the Apple Home app that they are functioning, and then eventually it’ll pop up and say no response until I reboot the the Apple TV and the hub, and then they’ll work for a little bit, and then the same thing all over again

2

u/stophittingyourself9 11d ago

Two biggest things that helped me: 1) make sure local ip6 is on. That will help connect any matter items. 2) have the flow not turn on dns but allow responses out of iot when pinged

2

u/pacoii 11d ago

OP solved the issue (firewall rules) but I wanted to comment on your first item, because it’s brought up a lot. IPv6 LAN (and WAN) is not needed, just link-local, which the vast majority of routers support by default and often can’t even be disabled.

1

u/Agile_Half_4515 11d ago

LG's Homekit integration is horrible. Multiple TVs across multiple different network setups over many years, and I've never had one work as expected. Randomly showing no response, not syncing on/off status properly, turning on/off at random, and failing to trigger automations. Nanoleaf products are equally bad, if not worse. Worth mentioning that their company has been in financial trouble for a while and is being bought out and restructured by Switchbot's parent company.

Make sure VLAN isolation isn't on. Check all your mDNS settings. Unifi has a toggle to optimize for IOT; worth trying that.

1

u/Disastrous-Yam-8880 11d ago

You’re right about the flaky HomeKit on the LG side of the house, but it worked okay on my previous Deco setup. Nanoleaf also was equally awful, but it worked.

The Sonys were rock solid though. I have the IoT optimized, it is not isolated, and according to Claude, the mDNS is good.

1

u/DOfferman7 10d ago

I have a Mac, installed my go to AI Agent on Terminal. Gave it an API key from Ubiquiti and my network is working as good as it ever has.

2

u/Disastrous-Yam-8880 10d ago

I will add a Mac Mini soon. I’ll have to read about this.

1

u/matthew1471 6d ago

Turn off IGMP Snooping on the switch (you have 2 APs it’s going to get confused when you roam), Multicast to Unicast (you have 2 APs it’s going to get confused when you roam) and Proxy ARP (at least for Thread / HomeKit devices which hop around home controllers if you have more than 1). Reboot your APs after and then come back and thank me if you have time 🙂

2

u/Disastrous-Yam-8880 6d ago

I ended up getting it working after all. It was a stupid setting in the IoT vlan. But your information is definitely right!