Matter device can not be connected

Hardware
1

Hi
I try to connect a matter/wifi powerswitch to my HA
Steps I do:

  • connect mobile phone (pixel 7a) to same network as the HA is connected to
  • reset the matter switch (button for 5-10s)
  • scan the QR code with android phone (Home assistant companion app is installed)
  • Phone asks to install device
  • select “other app - home assistant”
  • “searching for device”
  • “device is beeing configured”
  • device gets IP address and is pingable
    -" Network connection to “” is beeing tested"
    this is showing for about 5 min or so
  • “no connection to device possible”
  • :frowning:

Does anyone have an idea?
Thanks
Thomas

2

Are you connected to the internet while you doing this? Matter devices can’t be commissioned offline (at least at the moment?) :thinking:

3

Matter relies on multicast DNS to discover commissionable devices, and typically if you have a separate vlan or subnet, these multicast packets don’t survive passing through a router to get to HA. Routers can often be configured to forward mdns, but each routers’ settings are different which is why separate vlans are currently discouraged.

I have deployed several Matter-over-WiFi devices to an isolated vlan with no internet access, so that’s likely not the issue, but my HA server has a second NIC on this vlan so it can receive the mdns packets.

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4

Did you run a local DCL (Distributed Compliance Ledger) node to deploy offline matter devices? @Pierre84000 might be interested in this :wink:

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5

My understanding is the Matter server downloads the DCL (potentially from Nabu Casa, since they are a member of the CSA), not the end device or the commissioning device. At least that is how my iPhone worked, maybe Android is different.

6

Hi there,
I’ve been through exactly the same hassle. Probably spent some 15 hours on it with no luck. Solution was to connect via Bluetooth instead.

Please check out this thread: Matter Pairing/Commissioning hints

Credit goes to @Pierre84000 for having pointed me to this and of course @agners who maintains the Matter add-on.

If you need further details, have a look at Matter/Thread: connecting new device gets stuck in "Checking network connection" - #9 by wmaker and read the last 4-5 postings at the end of the thread.

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7

AFAIK if you use apple gear you auto magically make use of the vendor cloud - are your certain your apple phone was offline when commissioning? (maybe it had a mobile connection) :thinking:

Same for android, then it’s google cloud and no apple cloud :cloud:

8

FWIW, I just commissioned a Tasmota Matter device with my cell radio disabled, only private WiFi and bluetooth, no issues :exploding_head:. Again, my Matter server is dual-homed, so it can fetch the certs:

peter@felix:/opt/matter/data$ grep -i dcl matter-server.log
2024-09-30 13:42:48.828 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.helpers.paa_certificates] Fetching the latest PAA root certificates from DCL.
2024-09-30 13:42:50.688 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.helpers.paa_certificates] Fetched 63 PAA root certificates from DCL.
2024-09-30 13:42:51.811 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.vendor_info] Fetching the latest vendor info from DCL.
2024-09-30 13:42:52.154 (MainThread) INFO [matter_server.server.vendor_info] Fetched 247 vendors from DCL.
1 Like
9

Is this with a matter over wifi or matter over thread device you had issue commissioning?