Doing some quick searching, I noticed people had got this to work in HA using it as a Homekit Controller.
So after adding the fan via the SIMPLEConnect application, I noticed that HA recognized it as a HomeKit Controller device.
Following the option to add it, errors out with “Invalid flow specified”. Then closing the window popup, then Homekit Controller still gets added, and the fan and light both work as expected…for about 15 minutes. After that, the controller becomes unavailable to HA. The only thing that I’ve noticed is that flipping my switch (that removes power to the entire unit), seems to reset it, it shows up in HA for 15 minutes, and then same problem.
The Hunter SIMPLEConnect app is hot garbage, so not surprised that there are issues. Curious if to anyone has run into this issue?
I am a recent HA convert. I had 1 simple connect fan and the rest are all tuya. I too read that the best easiest way to get this fan is through Homekit.
I have tried a dozen times over the last two weeks and I can’t overcome it but I DID notice something different this last time that might point to the problem.
The problem I keep having is when I try to integrate Home kit to HA, it picks up everything except the fan. It did this multiple times. In my frustration, I ripped the integration out and put it back in 100 different times and this is what I learned.
Remove the fan from homekit and simple connect (effectively starting from scratch). Establish your Homekit connection, find all devices except fan (because you haven’t added the fan yet).
Then go in and add the fan to homekit with the barcode. WHILE you are doing this, watch your devices screen in HA. A new HA integration configuration will appear and it will say that its the fan. This is the part where I lose it…somewhere between then, and completing the fan setup in Homekit and simple connect something happens and if you click configure in HA on the newly identified simple connect fan via homekit, you get an error message about it can’t find the device and the action is aborted. The identified integration will disappear (and not be in disabled).
Unfortunately I know NOTHING about homekit and I am trying this out of a matter of necessity and I dont know if the problem is with HOMEKIT. I DID get it briefly to work once long enough for my Alexa integration to detect it. There’s an additional switch in homekit to allow 3rd party control of the homekit device. I have it enabled but doesn’t help with maintaining control in HA.
I just set up a fan today and I’m experiencing the same issue. Running the latest HA. I can control the entities for the fan and light through the HomeKit Controller integration for around 15 minutes and after that, they become unavailable. Once this happens, the fan can still be controlled via the Hunter app. Like you said, the app is garbage so I’d like to avoid using it.
Please update this thread if you find a solution and I’ll do the same. I may open a ticket with Hunter, but I’m not expecting much success.
No real updates yet - haven’t had much time to try and debug it. Just sent an email to Hunter support explaining the situation. If I figure anything out I’ll update the thread (or if I get a response from Hunter).
Just curious, what firmware version is running on your fan? Mine was running 1.9.1 earlier today but I see they must’ve pushed me an update because now the app shows it’s running 1.10.39. Sadly, I’m still having the same issue where it becomes unavailable to HA after a short period. Someone from Hunter support is supposed to be giving me a call in a couple days.
Thank you for contacting Hunter Fan Company, maker of Hunter and Casablanca fans.
As a follow-up, we do not test our app with HomeAssistant. We can only recommend using it with Alexa, Google Assistant, Homekit.
I’m going to push this a bit and see how far it goes…
Well, working with Hunter from my end seems to be a bust…not sure how you were able to schedule a call with them…
As a follow-up, the only technical assistance we can offer is if our SIMPLEconnect app is not working. Our app is not supported on Home Assistant at this time.
Edit: I may just start a GitHub ticket under the HomeKit Controller integration and start there, if Hunter won’t help us. I’ll try and do that after work today.
Edit: Something I’ve also noticed, is that SIMPLEConnect reports the serial id as 0 (a bunch of zeros). I noticed that there was a recent update for the Homekit Controller integration to support devices with poor serial number reporting…wonder if it’s something around that?
@Sergeantpup@rgreuel Not sure if youe’ve been following the github thread, but turning on ‘aiohomekit’ debug logs in your configuration.yaml, restarting HA, and doing the paring process has shed a little bit of light.
It seems like the device just stops responding to the TCP socket connection. Thus the ‘unavailable’ nature of the fan device. However, there are others that have no issues as well…
Curious to what type of router (manufacturer/model) you guys have, and have you messed around with any IGMP settings?
I’m using a ubiquiti unifi switch 8. I HAVE messed with the IGMP settings SINCE I last tried this fan at the recommendation of SONOS on an unrelated issue. I’d be willing to try what you’ve mentioned here.
@Sergeantpup Yeah, I would at least try to verify that you see the same behavior.
Remove fan from SIMPLEConnect and HA
Modify your configuration.yaml file to put “aiohomekit” at the debug level
Restart HA
Readd fan to SIMPLEConnect
Add fan to HA
Use the HA controls to mess with the fan until it stops working
As soon as the fan becomes unavailable, go to the full system log in HA (under the configuration section on the sidebar)
See if the logs have the same behavior as mine in the github thread - you’ll see it lose connection towards the end + have an exponential backoff for retries.
Edit: I specifically have a Netgear RAX50 - but Netgear really doesn’t expose a lot of options (starting to wonder if this really is around router settings…). There’s a lot of threads on the Internet about IGMP/Multicast/etc and their effect on Homekit traffic.
I just read the GitHub issue. Thanks for getting that started. I will try setting the aiohomekit logger to debug when I get a chance. Hunter is supposed to be calling me in a couple hours so we’ll see how that goes.
For my router, I’m using a unifi dream machine. I did try turning IGMP snooping off and multicast enhancement off, but I didn’t notice a difference. I also tried setting up an old spare Netgear router I had laying around. Just my laptop and the fan on the network. Same thing, the simpleconnect mDNS service wasn’t discoverable after about 15 minutes.
Also @DaveKram I used to have that issue where the simpleconnect app wasn’t showing the serial number too. Since I got the newer firmware pushed to me, it displays in the app as expected. However, that doesn’t seem to have affected the homekit connection issues.
Just to update… I spoke with someone from support at Hunter today. He said he’d just talked to another person about the same issue (maybe you @DaveKram? )
He pretty much just said to make sure the fan and your homekit controller are on the same VLAN (they are). The Ayala network service should run on port 80 and the homekit service will run on a random port. I think we’ve figured that out by now.
He did say that they pushed a newer firmware version to me last night. I hadn’t messed with the fan since a couple days ago, so he asked me to give it another shot and report back. Well, this is where it gets real fun. I power cycled the fan, and it wasn’t rejoining my network like it usually does. I tried it a few times and nothing. So, I decided to start from scratch and go through the setup process again. I hold the button on the back of the remote to reset it, I select the fan within the app, enter the homekit code, and then I just get “no wifi networks found”. So I’m not able to get this thing back on my network now. Worried that the firmware update really fucked me now. I emailed support back to let them know, but haven’t heard anything yet. Unsure if it’s related, but I did install an android update on my phone this morning. Perhaps that update broke something with the app? I don’t know. Either way, it seems Hunter’s software sucks on both fronts.
@rgreuel Interesting conversation. That’s all they said? Was make sure everything is on the same VLAN?
I did start using nmap against the fan Verified that homekit is a random port and an http service on port 80. I’ve noticed that the fan only cycles port numbers on power cycle’s - so it’s not doing anything weird during operation (at least in terms of rotating port numbers).
I think I may try and just go through the pairing process, while continually scanning it with nmap, to see if the state of the homekit socket changes at all…like over in the Github thread, it’s like the TCP socket just stops responding. Even when it becomes unavailable in HA, I can still ping the device, and still nmap both port 80 and the random homekit port. It’s like the code that provides the homekit service on the fan crashes or something/doesn’t restart.
Still no closer to a solution though. But going to try and probe it a bit more tonight.
Ran an nmap scan on my fans 55056 port after HA couldn’t see it anymore:
55056/tcp closed unknown
My understanding is that closed means that there’s no service on that port, but no firewall or anything is blocking it, so it shows up to nmap…very interesting.
Edit: @Sergeantpup@rgreuel I’m curious if you’re able to see the same nmap results…see if the homekit port shows as closed after the device goes unavailable in HA.
You’ll have to forgive me, I can understand about every 6 words and I can eventually click my way through this to figure it out with you guys, it just takes me 10 times longer. You’ve given me great instruction so far and I’ve learned a lot already. This is just the deepest I’ve ever had to dive into any issue, but I’m totally a willing participant. Not being an apple/homekit user has me at a disadvantage, I have to coordinate the testing with the apple fanboy of the house.
I have caught up on all the information in this thread. I understand it, I’m processing it, and I will put time towards testing these scenarios and reporting back my observations. I am fully invested in helping us find a resolution or at the very least point to the problem/confirm same behavior.
@DaveKram wish I could nmap my fan but I’m still dead in the water here. I can’t get it through the setup process anymore. Didn’t hear anything from support today either. Pretty frustrating. Based on the testing you’ve done so far it does seem like the problem is the fan firmware.
I’m now 98% convinced this is a fan firmware issue. I turned off the docker container running my HA. Started the pairing process over. Added the fan to SIMPLEConnect. Then just did periodic nmap scans.
There are two ports. Port 80 and port 55056 (well to start, if you power cycle, it seems to rotate the homekit port).
The nmap scans first show port 80 and port 55056 open (http and unknown services respectively).
However, after a certain period of time (like all the use cases we have seen), the device just becomes unavailable. After some amount of time, the homekit port in my nmap scans goes to closed, even without HA in the loop.
Convinced this wouldn’t even work with an iOS device, unless there is something in iOS that ‘keeps the connection alive’ that the integration isn’t doing. Or the fan firmware is crashing, closing the homekit port prematurely, etc.
It’s like there’s a (hard?) timeout for the ‘pairing’ mode of the fan, and even if there’s a valid pairing, it still closes the port and stops listening for homekit traffic…
The only thing I could think of from a homekit integration stand point is if the HA integration isn’t filling out everything the fan firmware ‘expects’ for a pairing…the integration would think it’s paired, but the fan wouldn’t (fully?). Not even sure about that, because I can still control my fan in HA for a bit…
Sorry, mostly spitballing…trying to think into a black box that is proprietary firmware isn’t easy
Got time on the calendar this weekend to do the testing and nmap scans with the apple fanboy of the house.
I will say that homekit and alexa have been able to control the fan every time I’ve messed with it lately (which hasn’t been often) but I’ve made no further attempts with HA. I will try all of this, this weekend. Hope to report back some useful information, later.
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Verified that homekit is a random port and an http service on port 80. I’ve noticed that the fan only cycles port numbers on power cycle’s - so it’s not doing anything weird during operation (at least in terms of rotating port numbers).