"Include Entities" never works for HomeKit and Alexa

Third party integrations
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So I have this problem with my HA installation, which is running as the supervised version in a Linux VM on an Unraid-Server.

I have 2 integrations that drive me nuts, and that is the HomeKit and Alexa integration. Both of which offer the selection of entities I want to make available to them by either using the UI walkthrough or the configurations.yaml.

I am desperately trying to only push some enitities to HomeKit/Alexa (important switches, lights etc.) because otherwise I have every single entity there which is over 100, most of them useless in those systems.

No matter how I try it - only including the entities via include_entities: in YAML won’t do anything. I just gett all the entities, no matter what I do. I have to specifically also exclude all other entities, which is much and also changes often, even though both documentation say “using include will only add those devices”.

First it happend at the homekit integration, where I thought there is an error in the integration behind or sth. Now for Alexa the exact same thing happens and I can’t get my head arround why.

Does anybody had similar experiences and knows something I don’t? Thanks in advance!

1 Like
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You can limit the entities exposed to Alexa by going to Configuration | Home Assistant Cloud | Alexa Manage Entities then clicking on Manage Domains (top right-hand corner). This allows you to set the default for each type of entity. Set them all to “off” and entities will no longer be exposed unless you specifically say so. I imagine there’s something similar for Homekit.

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I do not use the Nabucasa-Cloud, I have my own domain set up. So no options unter Home Assistant Cloud.

Also I did explicitly used the include_entities which per documentation do this:

Filters are applied as follows:
2. Includes, no excludes - only include specified entities

But it does not work, neither for homekit nor alexa.

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I’ve found a similar issue where via the UI I enabled homekit and enabled all domains and then I was specifically selecting to include certain devices but I noticed that devices where being added that I unchecked and then I thought I will check it and uncheck it see if that works and all that did was import more unchecked items into homekit.

So far I have had to include all Domains but then on the next screen use the EXCLUDE function instead to exclude the items I don’t want but as you say this means HomeKit automatically adds the device until I go in and set it to exclude.

It seems using the include function is unreliable.

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I have the same issue ever since I started using HomeAssistant about 1 year ago and I’m yet to get it behave the way the documentation says it to work.

include_entities:, include_domains:, exclude_entities:, include_entity_globs: - None of these filters work for me on alexa integration. And I use custom Alexa integration not Nabu Casa

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Any news on this? This is quite annoying to have lots of double and unnecessary items in the Home app on iOS.

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Not for me so far. Still have to exclude basically everything and carefully include certain entities manually in the config.yaml :frowning:

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Thought I was going crazy, I set it up through a yaml, include only and random entities show up in homekit. Will try exclude, but damn this isn’t that great.

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Created an issue here, with my diagnostics. If anyone has diagnostics or anything else to share please add to the discussion or thumbs it up please.