Is there a difference between sharing matter devices from HK or exposing from HA?

Configuration Matter/Thread
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1

Hi, I’m a HA beginner and still in the process to get all my HomeKit devices running in HA. Can somebodey explain if it is a difference if

  1. I use the home app to initiate paring mode of connected matter devices to connect them as well in HA.

or to

  1. Pair them directly with HA and then expose them to HK afterwards using the HomeKit Bridge integration.

Are both integrations later working the same way? I just want to understand how it works, if there are (dis)advantages with one or the other way.

Please enlight me! :blush:

2

Yes, they are functionally the same. Matter devices can support multiple fabrics / controllers so there is no linkage on the control plane (they just share an underlying network). The controllers do not communicate, rather the device just updates both fabrics. You can delete from either fabric with no impact.

Often if you have Thread devices and an Apple Thread network, it’s more straightforward to add to Apple Home first, because it skips all the complex credential sharing with HA that often trips people up.

3

Yeah you’re right.
First thank you very much that you took the time to share some knowledge. I really appreciate that.

My Apple network existed now for years and HA I just started with. So I just had to trigger the pairing of the matter devices from Apple Home and use the provided PIN in HA HomeKit Device integration.

So connecting to HA HomeKit Device first and then expose it to Apple Home via HomeKit Bridge only makes sense for the old (non matter) HomeKit devices as well as unsupported non HomeKit devices (3rd party)?

So far I was successful then to connect the matter devices as well to HA. As well it worked fine to add some unsupported devices to HA and expose them with the bridge to Apple Home.
However what went not was to add old HomeKit devices (non matter) to HA. This I try to get solved in another post at https://community.home-assistant.io/t/homekit-device-no-unpaired-devices-could-be-found/947612?u=sebg77

If you know more about this you may help me out there as well. :blush: