I’m trying to use the Matter support for my Home Assistant Yellow for the first time, and I cannot even begin to try to enroll Matter devices.
When I go to Settings > Devices & Services > Devices > Add Device > Add Matter device, I am greeted with a spinning loading wheel, and the toast notification stating Matter is currently unavailable.
Troubleshooting steps taken:
Ensured that HA was fully up-to-date within stable releases
Removed the Matter server and add-on, rebooted, re-added Matter services, and rebooted again
Restarted Android phone
Cleared cache for HA companion app
Have NOT tried wiping the HAY box completely
Version information:
Home Assistant 2023.4.0 running on HassOS 9.5
Running on a Home Assistant Yellow PoE
Using Home Assistant companion app 2023.3.0-full on Android 13 (Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra)
Got a response in the Home Assistant Discord with the answer:
the error you have is because of a chicken and the egg issue.
it seems that google requires a home hub in the network at least once to activate the matter support.
I had gotten a Google Hub Mini Gen 2, and took the following steps:
I factory reset and set-up the hub normally; adding it to the same network as my Yellow
I added one of my Nanoleaf Essentials Matter bulbs to my Google Home account
I verified the first bulb was working, then I unplugged the Google Home
I then took a different bulb (same model), factory-reset it, and added it using Home Assistant using the pairing code instead of the QR code
It appears that it’s connected, working, and even color control works! It’s a dirty workaround to get Google to behave, but I believe the Google Hub is no longer required from this point.
Some pointers:
I have no idea if the Google Hub needs to stay within your Google Home instance in perpetuity
The enrollment process in HA can be very flakey. It may fail to pair the first, second, or even third time
You may need to try troubleshooting steps, such as powercycling the bulb, factory resetting the bulb, restarting your phone, restarting the Yellow, or praying to a higher power
My phone, bulb, and Yellow were all in the same room, relatively close to eachother
It took a considerable amount of time for the bulbs to pair. It took roughly 3 minutes for it to connect and pair. Just leave the app alone as it tries to enroll the matter device
I did have an issue with some bulbs after updating to HA 2023.4.1 from 2023.4.0. Unsure if rolling-back to the install backup of 2023.4.0 fixed it, or the reboot of my Wi-Fi router did.
I even unplugged all other Thread devices as a troubleshooting step. I believe this may have been partially responsible for my success with the last 3 bulbs.
Why in the actual hell is Google anything required for this? I have some matter devices that were working fine in Apple Homekit but then quit being reachable for no apparent reason, so I was going to put them in HA instead, but this is just as bad if not worse. Major L if we have to put Google garbage in our homes to use this. I should also note, as of right now, I DO have some Google Nest Nub displays on network that I had planned to get rid of, and they aren’t helping with this issue.
This fortunately hasn’t been needed for quite some time now. Since this post, I’ve enrolled many Matter + Thread devices via the Home Assistant app instead.
HOWEVER, I just today found a MUCH better way. It’s not the most user-friendly, but you can access the Matter server’s Web UI via Home Assistant, and enroll devices there DIRECTLY, which skips the need for a phone entirely: