XE75 Pro and HomeKit (and IoT Network) (and Bell - non bridge modem)

XE75 Pro and HomeKit (and IoT Network) (and Bell - non bridge modem)

XE75 Pro and HomeKit (and IoT Network) (and Bell - non bridge modem)
XE75 Pro and HomeKit (and IoT Network) (and Bell - non bridge modem)
2024-07-11 12:46:15 - last edited 2024-07-27 12:11:01
Model: Deco XE75 Pro  
Hardware Version: V3
Firmware Version: 1.2.9 Build 20231225 Rel. 57498

I wanted to write a little but of my experience with this Mesh system.

 

To Start with, my home is 99% HomeKit (WiFi, Thread), with some IKEA Zigbee in the mix via Dirigera Hub.

 

I have tried to keep it "Clean" as an echo system.

I have about 60 IP Addresses in total in the house (Phones, Switches, Dimmers, Speakers, Sensors etc.).

 

I was with another provider before - where i could set the modem in "Bridge Mode" but with my current provider there is no option for that (I have read about some DMZ modes but have not explored them further to date).

 

As I got the new Fiber modem, I had purchased the Nest WiFi Pro (6e) trio, and set it up.

As expected this caused a double NAT to exist (as the modems router had a NAT and the NEST has a NAT.

I saw issues with latency right away, and I was not able to make it work (Even got a 4th node).

 

I ended up selling the NEST WiFi Pro and got the Bell (ISP) "Pods" - they are made by Plume but OEM as a BELL Pod (6e).

At least no more Double NAT - and the Bell WiFi App was easy enough to use (Albeit a little simple / limited in what you could do with it.).

 

I later helped a friend of mine that also has Bell, install the XE50 line in his house, fully expecting it not to work well.

But to my surprise it did work well (he does NOT have many smart appliances, and they are NOT HomeKit).

 

In any event after a month for him with no hiccups, I decided to return the WiFi Pods (You lease them from Bell), and get the XE75 Pro (as I wanted 6e).

Initial setup was okay, even with the Double NAT.

All my devices seemed to latch on (Same SSID/PW as before), and all looked good.

 

After 2 weeks, I started to see some of the smart devices dropping and re-attaching.

First one to do so was my Smart Doorbell (Netatmo) - it is a canary as it is very sensitive that way - usually it reconnected within 5 minutes.

 

I then decided to active the "IoT" SSID on the XE75 nodes. This is essentially a new SSID on the 2.4 (and 5)GHz spectrum.

I then decided to migrate most of my IoT Devices over (took 2 days) to the new SSID, and they all started to show up in the Home App on my iOS devices.

 

Only after one day of this - things fell apart completely - Doorbell refused to even connect when reset (5 tries).

I also decided to test the speed on the IoT network and was shocked that many times of re-joining an already joined IoT network I was told the "Password incorrect".

This struck me as the most strange thing as I had never changed the Password in the first place after setting it up.

 

Once I was able to join it, the speed was abysmal (no wonder latency or connection drops were frequent).

Loading a google search page took 30 seconds (under 1 sec on the other SSID).

 

I also tried turning on IPV6 after reading the forums, but this has no affect on my issues.

I also tried changing from Router mode to AccessPoint mode - This needed several reboots for all devices to back back to "working"

But over all there was no effect.

This leads me to believe it is more a radio issue (ran many Optimizations) than it is a Double NAT issue.

 

 

I then spoke with TP Link Support and they suggested a wipe all settings and start over (without the IoT network on).

 

Last night I did a full reset (Delete network in the app, then reset (pin hole) each node, then setup again.

I also rebooted the modem for good measure.

 

After that I tried to migrate my IoT Devices back to the main SSID, but many of the struggle (was never an issue before).

 

As of now - I have re-ordered the Bell Pods (this was at least working well) and I intend to return the TPLink system to BestBuy for a refund

 

I am not sure if there was other steps I could have taken, but reading the forums I also saw that others had issues with the 2.4Ghz band being unstable.

 

EDIT:
I did go back and re-punchase the XE75 Pro - loaded a beta firmware and it now works much better! 
No more drop offs, but some latency that I hope will disappear.

At the moment, I have not enabled the IoT SSID, and all devices are on the same SSID, I have even put the 6Ghz on the same SSID (as Apple recommends)

IPV6 is not enabled.

 

 

 

 

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#1
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20 Reply
Re:XE75 Pro and HomeKit (and IoT Network) (and Bell - non bridge modem)
2024-07-12 03:42:07

  @Jonas-Homekit 

Hi, Thank you very much for the feedback.

It is indeed frustrating to have such an experience. The engineers have been concentrating on the 2.4GHz performance optimization for a while and also received several positive feedback. If you're willing to spend a little more time, I'd be happy to escalate your case directly to the engineer for further assistance.

I have created a support email for the reported issue, please feel free to give me an update if you would like to further cooperate with us.

Thanks again for your cooperation and support.

Wait for your reply and Best regards.

 

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#2
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Re:XE75 Pro and HomeKit (and IoT Network) (and Bell - non bridge modem)
2024-07-12 11:36:28 - last edited 2024-07-12 16:45:35

  @David-TP 

Thanks for getting back to be (and reading my story).

 

I would be happy to take any help I can to keep the system that was (when it was working) doing really well.

The main TP is in the basement (Fiber -> Modem (Bell GigaHUB) -> 10GE -> 1.5G port of TP link)

The Second one is in the ground floor (Kitchen) connected via WiFi (I have no way to pull wires in my townhouse)

The Third is one floor up (Bedroom) also connected via WiFi.

 

I also have a fourth floor where the bedroom floor covers just fine.

 

Besides the flaky 2.4Ghz connection - being asked to enter password (when a saved one exists) also troubles me as this could be a reason I am not able to re-enter my IoT devices back to any SSID at this pont (those SSID being provided by the TP link system in question).

 

I am doing some digging on the Leviton Decora units I have as they are the most stable and they offer some logs of what is going in as it tried to connect.

Most of the time - it says unknown error - or sometimes SSID not found.

 

When I had the IoT SSID enabled, I found that it disappeared very often - only to re-appear a fe seconds later. This was consistent compared to any other SSID in the area.

 

I hope this can be solved (soon) with a firmware update / patch.

 

before I forget, I also toggled "Use Mesh" to OFF for all the IoT Devices in the house.

I also Set the preferred Node for them, and even set the 2.4Ghz as the preferred band.

No Fast Roaming was enabled.

Beam Forming was always on - I will try to turn this off and see if there is any change and report back.

Beam Forming on or off does not make any difference (IPV6 On or Off also no difference either)

 

Also tried the DMZ mode of the modem - no change either - rebooted both router (mesh) and modem to make sure.. no change.

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#3
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Re:XE75 Pro and HomeKit (and IoT Network) (and Bell - non bridge modem)
2024-07-15 11:01:40 - last edited 2024-07-15 11:02:23

  @David-TP 

Someone contacted me for a firmware test, however at this point I had to return the system to BestBuy to ensure I could get a refund.

 

I really liked the Hardware & Software, it had all the features I wanted and was very flexible.

I will keep an eye out to see if the issues in the forum is resolved and re-purchase them again for a 2nd try.

 

The havoc it created in my home has caused me several days of re-conifugrations of smart devices (some of whom are still not back to normal).

As such there was little choice for me to restore order in the house (4 ppl) where 2 are working from home a lot and the WiFi need to be at 100%.

 

The 5Ghz (and 6?) seemed to be working well all the time, but the 2.4 was v ery unstable on any SSID..

 

As for the password rejection for saved networks, this is the first time I have ever seen this.

The support tech suggested I have too many strange characters in my SSID password, or that similar SSID's are in the same vicinity ?

This is a really really strange claim since your mesh system just adds to the existing SSID when you create separate (IoT, 6Ghz) networks.

So by that logic there must be at least 2 similar SSID from the same system.

Furthermore handling special characters (like ! _ @ etc.) is standard practice in strong passwords so if the XE75 Pro cannot handle this, we are in more trouble than initially thought.

 

Again - I am hoping both these issues are confidently squashed and once done I do not mind trying again.

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#4
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Re:XE75 Pro and HomeKit (and IoT Network) (and Bell - non bridge modem)
2024-07-22 13:37:30

  @David-TP 

 

Hello there

 

I wanted to reach out and check if you have seen an improvement on your firmware elsewhere?
I am back with the Bell and (Plume) pods for now.

I even tested using the ASUS XT9 mesh (horrible, bad and ugly!) just to see if that was any better.

 

To be honest, the TP link system was a joy to setup, configure and use.

had it not been for the 2.4Ghz issue I would have kept them - but the IoT SSID issue as well as the constant dropping of connections made me a little worried for the every day critical use of the Home WiFi.

 

I will keep an eye on the XE75Pro (or its successor), and hope to hear from you with a report that the issues I (and others) saw with dropped connection and 2.4 GHz congestion has been addressed.

 

/Jonas

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#5
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Re:XE75 Pro and HomeKit (and IoT Network) (and Bell - non bridge modem)
2024-07-22 20:17:52 - last edited 2024-07-22 20:18:23

I would love to know this as well @David-TP 

 

Is there another, potentially more stable firmware in the pipeline?

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Re:XE75 Pro and HomeKit (and IoT Network) (and Bell - non bridge modem)
2024-07-24 01:48:45

  @XWEBNetwork 

@Jonas-Homekit 

Hi, currently, the latest version is 1.2.10. It behaves better than the previous 1.2.9 version but according to the user feedback, it still has suspending issues.

Thank you very much and best regards.

 

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#7
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Re:XE75 Pro and HomeKit (and IoT Network) (and Bell - non bridge modem)
2024-07-24 01:52:35

  @David-TP Thanks for the replies, David.

 

I know my case has been escalated and am waiting for the reply, but can you share anything regarding the builds currently being worked on? Is there any internal feedback? 

 

Much appreciated.

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#8
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Re:XE75 Pro and HomeKit (and IoT Network) (and Bell - non bridge modem)
2024-07-24 11:25:41

  @David-TP 

Thanks for the reply, glad to see it is improving and keeping an eye out for more good news.

Is there a difference if the 2.4Ghz devices are on the IoT SSID (locked to a 2.4Ghz setting) or if they are on the "Shared" SSID?

I am planning to buy them again this weekend and give it another go.

 

I have about 35 devices on the 2.4Ghz from a total of 60 devices where the others are on the 5Ghz (and one on the 6Ghz).

 

As you can see - more than half of the devices are on the "slower" band.

What is the best approach using the TP links to balance this?

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#9
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Re:XE75 Pro and HomeKit (and IoT Network) (and Bell - non bridge modem)
2024-07-26 23:06:01
I was given access to a pre-release of a firmware. This has proven to stabilize my environment (not 100%, but close).
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#10
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Re:XE75 Pro and HomeKit (and IoT Network) (and Bell - non bridge modem)
2024-07-27 10:34:44

  @Jonas-Homekit That's promising to hear. May I ask which aspects remain unstable?

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