Not much I can do at the Thread configuration page. How do I set my Apple TV as the preferred BorderRouter?
I was poking around and did some searches on that as well. From what I can tell, the answer is “you can’t.”
If you have an iOS HA Companion App, you can now import Apple Thread Dataset/credentials into HA and you can then make it preferred.
Yes, and I’ve done that. Allowed access for my home network. But after that, nothing happens.
Oh sorry, I see you already have one Apple TBR preferred and you’re trying to get a second one.
Yeah as far as I know, HA can’t push preferred credentials to another Apple TBR.
Aha, Do I? But I only have one Apple TV. Where does it say that I already have one Apple border router as preferred? I’m a bit confused here.
Seems like I’m not able to include my Eve Thermo in Home Assistant then. I can add it by connecting it to Apple Home then remove it, then add it via the HomeKit-controller integration. But I can’t use it from there. Can’t change temperature or do anything and it’s confirmed that something is wrong because it says “Err” at the display on the Eve Thermo device. In HomeAssistant it also says it’s connected via Bluetooth and not Thread, as it should be. I have another Eve Thermo that is still only connected to Apple Home and from the Eve app I can see that that is connected to the same MyHome network as the below Apple borderrouter in my picture. So I really would like HomeAssistant to use that one.
Well…I may be wrong but usually a name starting “MyHome” is the name of an Apple Thread Border Router. If I’m correct, then there is one MyHomeXXX already listed under “Preferred Network”. If you are saying the same MyHomeXXX is also listed under “Other networks”, well… I don’t know how that came about.
At some point in time the MyHomeXXX shown under Preferred Networks means HA got MyHomeXXX’s Thread dataset/credentials somehow. I think the TBRs under “Other networks” are learned through Discovery, and somehow HA doesn’t think its the same TBR that it got the dataset/credentials from. I don’t really know why/how, but I think that’s what is going on in the case where you only have one Apple TBR name MyHomeXXX
If you already have a Thread device connected to an Apple Thread network, then you don’t need really need to worry about the “preferred” network. In fact the best practices recommended way is to continue using your Apple Matter/Thread Network, and then (somehow I don’t know how) have your Apple open up a commissioning window for another Matter Fabric such as HA Matter and then use your iOS Companion App to Commission the same device onto HA’s Matter.
If I remember correctly, the way I integrated all my Eve Thermo into my Thread network run by HA/OTBR and SkyConnect was to place them close to the HA SkyConnect antenna, reset them by holding the button (if I remember correctly) until the display switches to 66/99, then let HA detect them as bluetooth device and set them up. Only once they were added to HA I moved them to their final destination at the radiator, all of which were far away from HA. After a while they then started showing up in the thread network.
It was a big pain though and I was hoping for the Eve Thermo matter firmware upgrade which was planned for early November, but that seems to have been put on hold. And with all my frustration with Matter I might switch to Zigbee based TRVs in the next heating season and say farewell to Eve products. Nothing good happened at Eve since they were purchased by the ABB group.