Howto configure HomeKit Controller to detect Elgato Eve Motion or Switch?

darathor · November 29, 2020, 11:15am

Hello

HomePod (original and mini) and Apple TV serve as HomeKit extension for BLE devices such as EVE so yes it will help you out. if you have a very recent Eve switch it will be compatible soon with thread protocol (which is akin to zigbee) -> with an HomePod Mini (not the original) you’d probably see a near instant response time (let’s wait for firmware update and review)

Mariusthvdb · November 29, 2020, 11:26am

yeah, anxiously awaiting the release for the new HomePod Mini here… have a full set of Google home devices, so probably will end up doubling that with the Pods. O dear. Loved the intercom function of those as showed in the recent Apple Event. Have made that myself now in the HA interface of my GH devices, which was quite an effort tbh

Anyways, even thought the Eve energy switch is rather large, there’s a nice discount this weekend, so will probably grab a few extra and maybe even have a look at the Energy strip, which seems about the only strip around with individual smart sockets. Not sure if the energy metering on the strip is individual though.

pitleh · January 31, 2021, 3:46am

Hi @Jc2k

Hope you’re doing well.
Can I kindly ask you about the progress of BLE support for HA?

Thanks
Pit

Jc2k · January 31, 2021, 7:17am

What little time I have for HA these days is spent on support, code review or fixing bugs. Or very small features. So I haven’t even thought about BLE support in a year, unfortunately.

(It doesn’t help that the Eve Extend has been working so well for me).

pitleh · January 31, 2021, 8:22am

Thank you for the quick reply.
In that case i am going to get one of the Eve Extend and try this out. Just wanted to know that, so that I don’t buy this for nothing.
Take care.

pitleh · February 5, 2021, 6:44am

Hi @Jc2k

Just wanted to let you know the good news and my experience so far with the Eve Extend device.
I can truly understand now that you do not see the need for getting BLE implemented, because its just working great. I have 2x Eve Degree, 1x Eve Energy and 1x Eve Door.
Everything just works out of the box, with the installation description you gave here.
I am even considering buying the Eve Light Switch, since it would fit so well. The only downside are the costs of that thing.

Have a great weekend

Marcel_Frenzel · February 19, 2021, 12:47pm

One question how can I unpair my IPhone in the Eve app or how could it done.

Thanks in advance

pitleh · February 26, 2021, 2:28pm

Hi @Marcel_Frenzel
Sorry for not answering sooner.
I just went into the APP on my iPhone and removed the Eve Extend device, I am not 100% sure where exactly it is, but it was straight forward.
Perhaps this could be useful for you:
https://help.evehome.com/hc/en-us/articles/360010226974-Remove-Accessories-or-delete-your-Home

mb_EQNvD3CjP · April 22, 2021, 1:07pm

Hi there,

That is understandable.
Would adding more sensor readings/control to already working devices fit that schedule?

In particular:

eve weather is missing the air pressure reading
eve Aqua is missing the ability to control the valve (flow rate)

Thanks,
mb

Jc2k · April 22, 2021, 1:53pm

I don’t have either of those devices so it’s hard to speculate.

I believe Air Pressure is not a standard HomeKit value. This means a certain amout of reverse engineering will be needed to extract it. However on the HA side this should map cleanly to an ordinary sensor with a device class of DEVICE_CLASS_PRESSURE.

Flow rate also looks like it might not be a part of the HomeKit standard. It also looks like there isn’t a proper valve type in Home Assistant. Right now valves are modelled as switches, they can be on or off and that’s it. So we have to reverse engineer the custom HomeKit characteristic(s) used for flow rate, then figure out what to map that to on the Home Assistant side. There is a new number integration which would potentially allow us to control the flow rate, but it would be an independent entity to the on/off switch.

I’d need to see the .storage/homekit_controller-entity-map of someone with both of these devices already paired in order to progress further

creedda · February 26, 2022, 4:43pm

Hey Jc2k,

Thanks so much for all your contributions on this. It really makes a difference.

I know you set up your Eve Extend Directly with HA, what are you doing for firmware updates? Thats my biggest concern with disconnecting the Eve products from IOS is that they wont get updates anymore…

What do you think?

Jc2k · February 26, 2022, 5:00pm

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.

creedda · March 7, 2022, 8:44pm

Thanks!

I will try and setup my eve extend through homekit as you suggested.

One thing I will note is that I found out today the extend has been discontinued, so if you have BLE only devices that you want to connect to Home Assistant, get your extend now before they are all gone…

Maybe someday the homekit integration will support bluetooth and it wont be an issue, but for now I’ll get my extend setup.

Thank you!

Jc2k · March 7, 2022, 9:03pm

Funnily enough, I recently wrote a BLE backend for aiohomekit and Home Assistant, but i’ve not had time to finish it. It came about because another contributor has added Thread support to aiohomekit, and there is some crossover in the protocols. Anyway all the work thats gone into homekit_controller over the past 2 years paid off, it was actually pretty easy to get working. Both of these are queued up in our aiohomekit dev branch and really just need polishing.

That said things are super hectic for me right now, and I have no idea how well the BLE client will work in “real world” conditions (e.g. have only tested on a Mac so far, and i don’t know what the range is like, etc). So I still suggest going with the Extend for now. But hopefully we’ll be able to avoid it entirely in the future.

creedda · August 12, 2022, 12:27am

The day has come!

I was able to migrate my eve water guards with no issues to home assistant homekit controller ble.

Having trouble with my eve Motion and a Onelink device, but I’m sure we’ll get there!

Thank you so much to Jc2k and all the other contributors for making this happen.

Let us know if there is a good place we can help report what works and what doesn’t work since I’m sure not every homekit ble device is testable.

Jc2k · August 12, 2022, 9:22am

It wouldn’t have been possible without @bdraco who put my proof of concept code through hell and made it reliable enough to turn on by default. Big 's

You can expect things to get better and batter - HAOS 9 will massively improve dbus performance, which halves bluetooth read times. Other bluetooth work @bdraco is doing gets us wins all over the linux/python bluetooth stack. Pairing is faster. Wake up from sleep is faster. 2022.8 is really just the beginning.