Wifi problems

Smart Home Integrations SmartThings
1

I have an ancient Vista 10SE panel and just wanted to play with the Konnected Interface to see if I could get my 6 wired zones integrated into my HomeAssistant setup. Short answer is yes, I could, but had to abandon the idea.

The use case here was marginal to begin with -  getting three door sensors and three motion detectors integrated into HA with no chance of monitoring alarms or arming/disarming - especially since I already had a SmartThings sensor on one of the doors. The panel just doesn't have the needed capability to do more.

First problem was latency. I have HA set up to access remotely through a Duckdns domain (this was a requirement for Lutron Caseta integration). When I got this running, I lost the capability of contacting  my HA server locally at port 8123 (other threads out there talk abut this issue) , so the advice to use the api_host parameter just doesn't work to solve latency problems. You activate a sensor, and wait a long while to get notified in HA. Not good, but not a deal breaker, and not Konnected's fault.

The deal breaker is getting the wifi chip to hold a stable connection. It just doesn't. First I thought it was because I had the board inside the steel alarm box two floors from the router. I moved it out and thought that solved it, but after an  hour or two, it was back offline. After trying many locations. I decided to test it right next to the router.  Got it connected to wifi and , sure enough, after an short while,it began dropping off.

Could be I just got a bad wifi module, I guess.I could spend more time and effort replacing and playing with it, but I'm not going to at this point - easier just to buy cheap sensors I know will work. Also not going to ask for a refund or anything like that. I want to support Konnected and Nate. It's a great idea and I know the problems will be worked out going forward. 

You've come a long way and are almost there. Keep going!

2

Mine has a delay of milliseconds. I can click the switch in Home Assistant for the piezo buzzer and it goes off instantly. What router do you have?

3

Netgear NIghthawk X4S R7800.  Latency problems come and go. Maintaining wifi connectivity is the bigger issue. 

4

I have an equivalent router (same chipset) the Zyxel NBG6817 and the konnected devices have steady connections to it. I am running OpenWrt on it too.


I have also tested it with and without api_host pointed to local ip of  my HA install and couldn't see a difference in the time it took to click the piezo buzzer switch in HA and for it to sound. As a note with my configuration that when pointed to the default address (https://ha.domain.com) It is travelling to Cloudflare and being proxied back to my OpenWrt router that is running haproxy that redirects the traffic to my server which then redirects it to a Linux container. Even with all those hops I barely notice the latency.


Are the Konnected devices actually losing connection to the network or is HA not able to talk to them? It could be a multicast issue. I had to manually configure my HA to talk directly to Konnected without stuffing about with UPnP.


To do that you need to find the IP and port of the Konnected devices. IP is easy since you can look in the routers DHCP leases. I found the port by doing a port scan on the IPs using zenmap (nmap gui).


You then modify your HA konnected config to

devices:
  - id: <mac address>
    host: <ip address>
    port: <port>


5

I'm running the stock firmware  on the Nighthawk, not OpenWrt.  The Konnected Interface is losing its wifi connection with the router, not simply HA - blue light on the wifi chip flashing . FWIW, I have UPnP disabled. 


I should add that the latency problems seem related to the re-establishment of the wifi connection after it's been dropped. After the connection has been re-established for some minutes, latency issues  abate.


I do have the Konnected Interface mounted inside the steel alarm box, which is two stories away from the router. As Nick points out in his videos, many people experience connection difficulties with this configuration, and that's why he provides the outboard power option and recommends mounting the unit where it gets a stronger signal. For a lot of reasons, that "solution" doesn't work for me. 


I have experimented with a wifi "extender" located just one floor away from the panel, and, although it does improve things, staying connected is still an issue. The Konnected will establish a wifi connection with the extender, then drop it and connect directly to the router, then drop off entirely.  



6

I have placed my rpi3b+ running Hass in the cabinet and it is routing ethernet and wifi and running as an AP for the Konnected and ethernet straight to switch. This seems like a pretty good solution. When I am done and the metal case is buttoned up it should shield it a bit from WiFi jammers too!

BTW, it seems like thieves are using WiFi jammers on the video doorbells, so I would like to see a video doorbell with ethernet..

7

So you run CAT6 or whatever to the Pi?

8

Yes, exactly! The RPI/Hass system runs as an Access Point on the wifi interface for a new network that the K.IO connects to. The ethernet port is the uplink. One should be able to _bridge_ the two networks but I had issue with that so I ran dnsmasq to provide DHCP services to the konnected and whatever else I connect to that AP. Then the other option is to masquerade or to publish as a router on your internal network... I went route method which was probably more trouble than it was worth.


It's one way to skin the cat.


If the K's wifi board is truly having a problem this would not fix that. But in my experience wireless signal reliability on home equipment is less than stellar and this would probably solve most people's wifi complaints.


Attaching picture of my work in progress.

9

But it kind of defeats the purpose of the Konnected Interface design, no? If I could run RJ45 patch cable from my alarm panel to my router or access point, I would have other options for connecting it to Homeassistant.

10

No? Just depends on what you have and what you want... I doubt anyone will ever have a one-size fits-all in regards to home automation.

I did not have either of those products (just bare wires), my network demarc is nearby, so this works for me. YMMV.

I will say that I would prefer to have ethernet plugged into the Konnected board. Then I could move the Hass RPI into the iMac G4 body with a touchscreen that I plan to build.

11

Hi

I want a gaming modem and router combo  which will not have an issue of Wifi and range should be all over my house.Please suggest me if you have practical usage experience .My friend told me to read about these gaming modems but I want practical answer.

Thanks

12

Thank you for sharing your experience with using the Konnected Interface with your Vista 10SE panel. It's good to hear that you were able to integrate some of your wired zones bitlife into HomeAssistant, but it's unfortunate that you encountered issues with latency and wifi connectivity.