Hi all, I’m trying to get the 4th gen August lock to connect to HA via HomeKit rather than the hosted August service. I’ve read through the HomeKit Controller documentation and tried the two approaches that seem available: connecting it to Wi-Fi as part of the setup process then trying to discover it, and also the " Home Assistant cannot discover my device" section that mentions going through HomeKit setup with an iPhone and then removing the device (though that’s seemingly for non-UI devices). In both cases the only HomeKit device that’s showing up is my TV.
I’m pretty sure I’ve covered my basics. I’ve factory reset it and also confirmed it’s on the same network as HA. Do some HomeKit devices just not respond to discovery broadcasts? Anything else I could try?
If it’s relevant I do already have my Abode alarm system connected through HomeKit.
Which is the Gen4 model? Is that the new Wifi model (Which I am considering purchasing)? If you are connecting by Bluetooth only, then HA will not be able to connect through homekit_controller.
That’s the one. I did have it hooked up to WiFi for both approaches.
AFAIK, the Gen4 still uses bluetooth for HomeKit which isn’t supported by homekit_controller at this time.
#1 How do you like it?
#2 Here is what has worked for me with other stubborn devices - Add it to HomeKit natively in your Home app. Once it is there and connected to your network, remove it from the Home app. It should still retain your wifi connection info, which will then allow it to become visible to HA. Hopefully!
Where’d you hear that? Because that seems like a good explanation.
The lock itself is awesome. Not a single issue yet. It would just suck if it requires the app. And I did do what you suggested with no luck.
Well that’s too bad. Just out of curiosity, why not use the HA integration? I get that the local direct HomeKit connection is better. But I use HA for two Yale/August locks and am very happy with it. You could always connect directly to HomeKit for Siri integration too.
I have one and did a bit of testing.
Yep, looks like this is the answer. Oh well.
Were you not able to use the integrated August API? I’ve tried using it and once loged in tho nothing shows up. I get a august.conf file that says file not found. Not sure why.
Didn’t try. I don’t want my front door lock to rely on a third party/cloud service that I don’t trust. What I ended up doing is getting an Apple TV, pairing the lock to that, and adding two input booleans that are exposed by HASS via homekit and automated via the iOS Home app: 
You could take that a step further and create a template lock in HA using your booleans. Then it would look and act like a lock in HA.
Now that’s just a good idea. Doing exactly that now. Many thanks!
Where do you end up with this because I am in the market for a lock at the moment? I have very sophisticated flows in Node Red and would like to know if it is possible to use the HomeKit integration to feed me the device types and states
The August locks are good, and integrate well with HA. But you’re not going to be able to push it directly into HA through the HomeKit controller integration because August connects to HomeKit over bluetooth rather than wifi. The HA HomeKit controller integration will only connect to HomeKit devices over wifi.
@Tol did a little trickery by pushing input booleans into HomeKit and toggling them with HomeKit automations.
@_Mike When I add the HomeKit Controller integration I get “No unpaired devices could be found”. Might you know why that would be? I have plenty of HA devices - do I need to add HomeKit before HomeKit Controller?
First question: Is it a HomeKit compatible device? Assuming it is, you’ll probably need to pair it with HomeKit first in order to get it onto your WiFi. Then remove it from the Home app, and it should then show up in HA as an available device.
I know this thread is about the lock but what you say is exactly correct and I am able to make a HomeKit Controller from the Aqara Hub which is a separate use case I also have so thank you. I think I saw that in your advice or somewhere else but that does indeed do the trick.
I also installed a software on the mac called Discover and can see when the Aqara Hub disassosiates from the iPhone HomeKit. However when I do associate it with Home Assistant this happens:
tl;dr I’d like to get as much information as possible out of the devices but when I pair the Aqara Hub with Aqara Devices assocated to it with HomeKit for HA only a limited bit of information translates to sensors or binary_sensors and in one case one device only reports its battery level. But when I pair the sensors directly to my Zigbee/Z-Wave dongle (HUSBZB-1) I get different information. What more can I do to get Zigbee device information if using the native Hub for the device and pairing it to HomeKit isn’t a working solution?
Separate question but more on-topic: What information are you able to see about the August Lock and what actions can you perform? How did you get to the August Lock in the first place?
EDIT: It looks like I might be able to pull more information with Aqara using this integration:
With this advice for setup: Xiaomi Gateway (Aqara) - Domoticz
I don’t have any Aqara devices (at least not yet, but considering it one day). But my experience with various integrations is this - The native HA integrations tend to have more services and sensors than the corresponding HomeKit controller integration. However, HA often uses cloud polling and is subject to outages or changes in the API. While HomeKit is local and pretty solid. In some instances, I have added both so I get the best of both worlds. For example, the HA ecobee integration has much more granular control so I use that for my automations. But I also have my ecobees connected through HomeKit controller so that I can get instant local status changes from the sensors.