Howdy!
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)
- Matter Server running 4.2.0
[Work-around]
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.