I’m looking into buying a level lock plus. I 95% want it for the Apple Home Key capability, but would also like to bring it into HA using matter/thread.
Does anyone have experience, do you have to use an Apple TV/HomePod for the Home Key function, or can I use the HA ZBT-1?
After further digging, it seems like I could use the Matter integration in HA while also keeping Home Keys on my iPhone
I don’t have experience with this lock (I elected not to get it because you can’t setup guest pin codes on a schedule, you have to have them install the app and grant them access there), but I did get a Schlage Lock that has HomeKey support.
To answer your second question, yes, you need an AppleTV or HomePod to use HomeKey. For the Schlage, there is no Matter support, so I couldn’t technically get it into HA if I wanted HomeKey support. For that lock I used HA HomeBridge to share a binary sensor with the lock state between the two environments. On the HA side I made a template lock using that binary sensor. On the Apple Home Side I have some automations that change the state of the binary sensor when the lock state changes and lock/unlock the lock when the binary sensor state changes. This allows me to get state and control the locks from either platform.
It’s kind of tacky, but it does work.
Seems like no one’s figured a good way.
I was able to get Home Keys set up using a “temporary” HomePod that I won’t be using.
I added the Home Assistant ZBT to the HomePod’s thread network and then added the lock through the matter integration.
Very clunky, but I’ve tested and I can now remove the HomePod and still have HomeKeys and HA access through matter.