Fixing the HomeBridge No Accessories Responding problem

If you’re running HomeBridge on a Raspberry Pi like your’s truly and is facing the HomeBridge No Accessories Responding problem, well here are perhaps some steps that might help you fix the issue. It’s an extract from my full blog post on Getting the TP-Link HS110 Smart Plug to work with Apple Home & Siri. I decided to extract it out so that I can share it with anyone that’s facing this same problem. It took me a while to figure out what might be the cause and the following are the main couple of reasons why it wasn’t consistent for me. Hopefully, it would also help fix your issues with HomeBridge.

Getting rid of the HomeBridge No Accessories Responding problem

1. Ensure Multicast is configured to work optimally on your router

You will also need to make sure the router does not block and disable multicast within your network. Otherwise, you will often see the “No accessories responding” status on iOS Home app. The necessary configurations are a little tricky and it depends very much on the router you use. For my Asus RT-AC87U, I find that disabling IPv6 support and configuring the following settings at the IPTV settings under the LAN settings works for me.

Your mileage may vary depending on the router you are using. However, I’m certain that there is a similar set of configurations that are available on your router.

2. Disable Wi-Fi power saving mode on the Raspberry Pi

Make sure the Wi-Fi device power saving mode on the Raspberry Pi is disabled. I used the steps described here to disable it. Full credit to Huygens who posted this on Stack Exchange where I just follow to the letter. Essentially you can check if Power Saving mode is on with the following command: –

$ iw wlan0 get power_save
Power save: on

If it’s on, then edit the/etc/network/interfacesfile and with the post-up iw wlan0 set power_save offon the wlan interface.

iface wlan0 inet dhcp
  wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
  post-up iw wlan0 set power_save off

That’s it. With the two, your HomeBridge setup should be more stable than before.