Hey everyone, just wanted to share a few things I figured out after banging my head against the wall for a week trying to get all my Matter devices working smoothly together.
I’m pretty new to all this smart home stuff — picked up a couple of Aqara sensors and lights because the sales rep said Matter would “just work.” Spoiler: it didn’t… not at first anyway.
Problem #1: Devices wouldn’t show up on the app. Turns out my Wi-Fi router was set to use a weird channel and some devices just didn’t like that. Switched to channel 1 and bam — three sensors connected instantly.
Problem #2: My phone kept losing the pairing session midway. Super annoying. Ended up disabling the 5GHz band temporarily during setup and that fixed it. Once they’re all paired, you can flip 5GHz back on no problem.
Also—random tip but huge help—make sure your router isn’t doing any “smart connect” stuff that juggles devices between bands automatically. That broke like half my connections until I turned it off.
Now everything’s working great: lights respond instantly, automations on point, and no more random “device offline” messages.
Definitely still learning as I go, but hopefully this helps someone avoid the same stress! Anyone else have connectivity struggles or tips that helped you out? Let’s hear 'em.