Google firebase messaging conditions?

Configuration
1

I am trying to understand when HA uses Google Firebase messaging vs the local network connection for messages. I have:

  1. Set the home network WiFi SSID
  2. I have the internal connection set and the Home Assistant Cloud connection set
  3. I set persistent connection to “Always” and I also tried “On Home Wifi”

I send three messages per minute via Node Red if I am at home. I limit those messages to 3 every 15 minutes if I am not at home. The messages just allow me to see the status of three home devices at a glance, in the notifications list.

While this sometimes does work exactly as expected, HA often does not send messages via the internal network while I am at home, connected to local wifi, and HA has be recorded at home.

So, I am connected to home wifi. The Persistent connection is set to “On Home Wifi only”. I can see the “Connected to Home Assistant” in the notifications. But every minute, another 3 messages are used from my Google Firebase 500 message count allowed per day.

I tried these to wake it up that it can send messages via local network:

  1. Killed the Companion app on my phone and restarted it
  2. Swiped away the “Connected to Home Assistant” notification. It returned soon after.
  3. Disconnected from wifi and reconnected.

It still kept sending messages using Google Firebase regardless of these actions.

I then restarted the android phone. That worked. Now messages are going via local network, not the Google Firebase. I have noticed this prior to today, when Home Assistant insists on sending every message via Google Firebase, despite me being home and on the local wifi, if I reboot the phone, then it starts using local network as configured.

One final piece of information that may be pertinent. I am using a Wifi AP with three nodes in a mesh. As I move around the house, the phone just switches from one node to another. This works fine with all other apps. but I do notice that Home Assistant might not like the mesh node switching. When I move from one end of the house to another, passing a node, if I use Home Assistant Companion app quickly, then it complains that the connection is lost. I can either wait a couple minutes, or just turn off wifi, open the companion app, then turn wifi back on, and open the app again. Not sure if the “Persistent Connection” is not designed to work with Mesh Wifi, and it is somehow not realising it is connected to the home wifi?

Any ideas or info appreciated

2

To be specific, when I switch Wifi Mesh nodes itshows a “Reload UI” button in the center of screen, and “Connection Lost, Reconnecting” down the bottom. Wait about 2 minutes and it reconnects.

I think I might know what could be happening. When it disconnects like this as I move around the house, it sometimes offers a “Refresh External Link” option to fix it. When I did that, it appears that it then uses that external link until the phone is restarted.

Is this something that I can report as a bug? I don;'t know what the exact issue is with HA and the Wifi Mesh Nodes, but it always Disconnects and has reconnection issues on the base node only. I have never noticed it on the satellite nodes.

3

I also noticed in the Companion App under the"Home Network WiFi SSID", there is an option for:

“When loading dashboard and unknown if connected to Home Network WiFI”

It has options:

  1. “Use Home Assistant URL”
  2. “Use internal connection URL”

I don’t know what these actually do, and I set it to option 2 in hopes that I could force it to not use Google Firebase messaging while home.