I’m still very new to Home Assistant and many other network things but I actually love learning all about it.
Now I’m really getting a headache about using Thread…
The background:
I have Home Assistant Green and a Home Assistan Sky Connect.
I wanna integrate a door and window sensor P2 from Aqara but it tells me I need a OpenThread Border Router.
Now I already installed the addon and got it running more or less…
This is the current situation. I can’t add the device because I can’t change my preferred network.
I haven’t found much on the internet so now I hope someone can help me here…
None of my border routers have their own 3-dot menu, now I’m curious what it does. I also don’t have a little keyhole icon and can’t find any info in the docs on what that means.
The docs do say the circled [i] icon means HA has the credentials and can make it preferred, but then they say that the preferred choice is ignored anyway because phones have their own local preference when commissioning.
I’ve found (so far) four different ways to add credentials to a network, most of which require clicking a button in a companion app (which also makes no sense, when you think about it, why don’t they just sync up? Maybe the same reason preferred networks aren’t synced).
Edited to add : I just realized your screenshot shows a network with credentials but no border router, and a network with a (HA) border router but no credentials. That’s weird, it almost seems like the add-on sent the wrong credentials to the Integration; or maybe something was changed? I wonder if deleting and re-installing the add-on would fix that. Also consider this procedure to sync the Google credentials and make that your preferred network before installing the add-on, which appears to now automatically extend that network, and have fewer datasets to deal with.
Thank you for the reply!
Sadly there is no chance after uninstalling the addon and sync the credentials.
I already tried reinstalling the addon and the plugin config.
I can’t figure out why there is already a preferred network without a border router…
Oh and I tried the procedure you mentioned but the results are the same
The Thread integration shows all border routers that are actively broadcasting mDNS announcements. If the OTBR add-on is not installed, or is shutdown/changed/re-installed, its (original) routers should disappear. If their network was preferred, it will stay preferred even though the router is gone.
I installed OTBR today and learned that the 3-dot menu beside a border router has a single option for enabling credential-sharing with HA companion apps (it’s not clear why this is a per-router option vs a per-network option). Turning this option on adds the “key in a box” icon beside the router (note, it cannot be disabled). Apple and Google routers won’t have 3-dot menu / keys-in-a-box because their apps already have access to those credentials via their native frameworks.
Glad you are making progress. Hopefully with Google as preferred you have more luck bringing up OTBR/ZBT-1 as a member of that mesh.
I believe it has to do with the way the underlying Android/iOS framework (of the companion App) stores the Thread credentials, as the framework associates the credentials with a chosen TBR’s agent-id or extended address.
