So regardless of how you connect an Eve device to Home Assistant you won’t get firmware updates any more. It’s a choice between putting it in HA or having firmware updates.
I’m not too worried. Most of the devices are BLE devices, and none of them connect to the cloud. So from a security POV, theres no mass exploitation risk and i’m too boring for a targetted attack and too out in the sticks for drive by to be a risk.
As for stability/bug fixes, i just haven’t needed them.
That said, I do unpair the Extend from HA, pair it with iOS, then do admin stuff, then unpair from iOS, and repair with HA. This does mean i could update the firmware. Though it might screw up device ids, so not sure how realistic it is if you have lots of UI based automations. (UPDATE: To be clear this should work and if it doesnt its a bug, but i’ve not had time to explore).
I won’t be supporting firmware updates via homekit_controller, i’m too worried about bricking devices.