Hi all. With the new developer beta firmware for my HomePod Mini, in the iOS flame app, I am seeing thread version as 1.3.0. Is there any way I can merge the Apple thread network with other thread networks? I investigated a bit but can’t figure anything out. Hopefully this knowledge helps.
I just received my HA Yellow box, a few days ago and now I am trying to integrate my thread network (2 AppleTVs as Border Router) so that I can see my EVE devices (they are thread only) in HomeAssistant.
I have installed the MultiProtocol Add-on and activated it.
This is what I see in the Thread Integration:
As per the Thread Matter & Thread: where we’re at I would expect to be able to make MyHome2 the Thread Network for HA, but I do not find a way to do that, i.e. the “Make Preferred Network” is missing.
I am relatively new to HA, so would appreciate easy to follow guidance
My guess, is that you would need to set up Eve Matter devices in apple home, then onboard those Matter devices into home assistant with the secondary Matter code derived from the apple Home.app.
Only under that scenario would the Apple thread network share credentials with HA yellow thread network.
My best guess is…at the moment, HA does not have a way to get to the Apple Thread Credentials for a given Apple Thread network, and unless it can get to the Thread Credentials, it can not make an Apple Thread network a “preferred” network.
Thanks, unfortunately EVE has not released Matter upgrades for Thermostat and Aqua devices (yet), which are the ones I have. I do have one EVE Door, which I upgraded to Matter, and that worked as you described
Glad that it appears to work as expected. Can you tell if the HA yellow switched thread channels? I have read that Apple defaults to channel 25, but don’t know if that is true. HA is usually on zigbee/thread channel 15, unless I am mistaken.
Hi Vesalius, thanks for your help. HA was still on channel 15, I changed it to 25 and rebooted the whole system. Unfortunately this did not help. U think I should try all channels? Every channel change take 5 -6 minutes including reboot. I have searched the Web for Info on Apple’s channel use, have not found anything useful so far
Rereading seems the caveat might be that after onboarding the matter device into the home.app (after which your iOS device will store the apple thread credentials) you also have to use an iOS device (logged into the same icloud account to be sure) to manage HA and onboard the Matter device into HA using the secondary codes from apple home. Only under those circumstances will apple share the apple thread credentials with a 3rd party at the moment.
Thanks Vesalius, it’s getting just a little too technical for me. I have integrated a matter device that is not the issue.
My issue is that I have a network of Thread Devices (EVE) which I would like to integrate into HA.
Unfortunately when I use the Thread Integration, it does not allow me to select my AppleTV Border Router (or vice versa) to make it the Preferred Network. (see my post 32 of Aug 7). I have worked my way thru Channels 26 → 19, no luck. Will try the rest going down to 11 but am not hopeful that it will yield success.
Not sure of an easy explanation or fix, yet. Manually forcing the HA and Apple thread networks on the same channel will not help you so I would not waste more time there. Don’t expect to be able choose the Apple network as your preferred network in HA either for the time being (apple has to make some coding changes first). In fact it likely will only cause interference in the current state of thread.
I seem fixated on the thread over matter device because that one should be the easiest to use with both systems. I keep going back there because currently the only way forward for a unified network is doing things in specific order and using an apple device to manage the onboarding into apple home and then HA. If you really want to try to make this work I would remove any matter over thread devices (all thread really) from HA, then re-add one to HA, but use your iphone to do it.
Thanks vesalius, you are not the bringer of good news (not being able to choose Apple as my preferred network). The reason why I was trying is the documentation of the HomeKIt Device Controller: HomeKit Device - Home Assistant, which states:
Adding a HomeKit device to a Thread network via Home Assistant
There are two methods to add a HomeKit compatible device to a Thread network:
and: Thread network : In order to use HomeKit over Thread, you need a working border router.
Make sure your Home Assistant device is on the same network (LAN) as the border router. * Make sure the Thread network you’d like to use is known by Home Assistant and marked as Preferred network in the Thread configuration.
which raised my expectation, that I could integrate my Apple Thread NW into HA.
On your second point, I only have one Matter device and no Thread devices in HA yet (because of the above). I will add the Thread devices one by one to HA using one of the methods in the above (see what works) so that I can manage them (e.g. switch of thermostat when window opens) within HA.
Understand, you weren’t the first (I did the same and others had before me) and won’t be the last, until apple makes the required changes or HA corrects the documentation to reflect the current limitations.
Thanks again vesalius, it is shame that the HA Documentation puts a lot of people on the wrong foot, costing lots of time and energy to many.
It would be nice if the originator would keep track here and maybe explain how he/she came to suggest that integrating a thread network thru Apple Border Router works and how that was accomplished?
Anyhow, once again, many thanks for your help and patience with me!
Hey, I do not think we have options, or at least not that I know of, to change the Google Nest channel. I did indeed succeed changing the SkyConnect channel to 18, matching the Google Nest one. I have not had any issue since then.
