MyQ HomeKit Hub - Block Internet Access

Hardware
1

I’ve added the hub to Home Assistant via the HomeKit integration (which allows for local control and doesn’t use the cloud) and yesterday I decided to place the hub on my “NoT” VLAN (blocking all internet access).

Since then, I’ve noticed that Home Assistant keeps marking it as “unavailable” every few minutes (between 1 and 6) which is making it very difficult to reliably open and close my garage door.

Has anyone managed to get this working? Is reliable internet required for the local control to work consistently?

I would prefer to disconnect the Hub from the MyQ service if I can because I don’t trust that a software update won’t kill some feature I’m using (like local control or whatever).

2

Which MyQ hub/bridge/gateway? I recall they have made a couple of those so far, with different limitations here and there.

Also how do you integrate MyQ exactly?

3

I’m using the HomeKit hub:

I integrated it with Home Assistant using the HomeKit controller integration:

I am not using the MyQ integration.

4

I do the same thing and I just blocked it a couple of days ago and noticed it goes unavailable a ton, every 15 minutes or so. I haven’t done a packet capture yet but I’m hoping it just reaches out to an ntp server or something and goes unavailable when it doesn’t get a response. I’ll dig in and see what I can find, but I thought the whole point around HomeKit was that it worked without internet.

5

Do share whatever you would find.

I guess MyQ’s hub does something else, necessarily or not, outside of the HomeKit.

6

That would be amazing. I want it blocked if I can.

7

Sorry for the long delay, kinda forgot about it. Ended up allowing it on my network and it’s been working fine for a while. Just got around to blocking it again and it’s back to going unavailable.

I see the following destination addresses/ports in my firewall.

52.191.234.39:8883
52.191.239.94:8883
20.228.109.245:8883

They all seem to be micro soft owned addresses and I couldn’t find any reverse dns lookup info on them, so they’re probably just azure blob storage or something. I haven’t run a packet capture or anything yet but it’s odd. I have 2 garage doors, and only 1 goes offline at a time. The bridge doesn’t seem to go offline, just the single door.

8

Yeah, I finally gave up.

It clearly checks whether it can connect and if not it’ll go offline. I’ve added it to a VLAN that doesn’t have access to my main network but it would be nice to stop MyQ from knowing whenever I come and go.

9

I’m less concerned about them knowing when I come and go and more worried about it not working if they take the server offline or something. I have it registered directly to HomeKit and not registered to a myq account right now so nothing shows up in the myq app, it’s only in home assistant but it’s still checking in.

1 Like
10

I moved the bridge to another room and changed my firewall rule to reject the traffic as opposed to just drop and it’s been solid for like a week now. Nothing registered in the MyQ app, all outbound traffic blocked and it’s staying connected.

11

Really? That’s interesting. I might have to give it a go.

12

So these are addresses owned by Microsoft? Maybe it is Azure…?
It is interesting to see someone using 8883… that’s MQTT… right?

1 Like
13

Yea I think it’s azure blob storage which makes sense.

And yea 8883 is an mqtt port, but I’d be surprised if that’s what it actually was.

14

Note that the company behind MyQ has abandoned HomeKit.

… and the web address https://www.myq.com/apple-homekit is now being redirected to another bridge that DOES NOT have HomeKit capabilities - one can actually search reviews on their website for the keyword “HomeKit” and see for yourself.

So as of summer 2022 (that’s more than 1 year now), there is essentially no MyQ bridge that is made by Chamberlain and can offer local control…

So what do we do? Options are: (i) (I would not recommend but) you can find and buy the discontinued HomeKit bridge from MyQ, or (ii) you can get something that is made by 3rd party, or (iii) you can DIY.