I purchased Linkind Matter bulbs and expected to easily setup them up. My understanding of the issues come from AI. I am asking if the assumptions are correct. Even if I was misdirected and I added to the problem. Matter is not for the faint of heart in regards to Home Assistant. It takes seconds to commision them to Apple Home or to the Linkind app. I assume just as easy to setup in Google Home. In my mind Matter which is suppose to make things easy is a veiled attempt to lock into the big corporate structures. I will leave out many steps to keep this short as possible.
AI said my Home Assistant container in Synology does not allow the Matter Server to work well with Bluetooth. I can see ESPHome has Bluetooth setup. After many attempts including trying to share from Apple Home I accepted AI’s conclusion and purchased a Beelink. I installed the Home Assistant OS on bare metal.
Is there a signicant operational difference between Home Assistant in a container and running as the OS?
The Beelink bluetooth was not recognized so I used a bluetooth board I also used in the previous attempt when in a container. Yes I successfully flashed it. I do have Synology and Beelink running on a secure network. I did attach a Pixel tablet to the network to try to get the share to work from Apple Home. As well as try to connect to the bulb as a new device. What is maddening, I can see the bulb IP but cannot add the IP. Just because a QR code or number code might make things easy to setup should not make an alternative choice of adding an IP address invalid.
I have literally spent weeks trying to get this to work. As I said even if some of the issues are of my own creation, it should not be this difficult. FYI - I have setup numerous smart devices in Home Assistant. This is not my first try with Home Assistant.
Part of this is venting. I also care to here from people what they did to fix this issue. I would have bought Kauf bulbs but they appear to be not well regarded. I have Kauf plugs and they were easy to setup and work great.