Nanoleaf Essentials over Homekit Controller

Hello there,
is there anyone who was able to connect Nanoleaf Essentials LED strips over Homekit controller to Home assistant? If so, does it work without any issues?

Thank you.

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I just tried today with no luck.

image

Yes, it got it running now.

My learnings:
You can only connect Homekit devices via Homekit Controller when they are NOT connected to Apple Home! (This is also mentioned in the documentation)
Iā€˜ve deleted the Nanoleaf Lightstrip from the Home App and then iā€˜ve done a factory reset.
After this step the device was automatically detected from Homekit Controller and i was able to add the light with the Homekit Setup Code.

Hope this short guide helps?

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Hey,
i canā€™t get it to work like that. I did a factory reset on a brand-new essentials bulb which was never connected to homekit before and the homekit controller integration says ā€œNo unpaired devices could be foundā€.

Are you using a Homepod Mini as thread border router or some kind of Nanoleaf BR?

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Iā€˜ve a Homepod mini and Nanoleaf Lines which are both BR. But as we are talking about Bluetooth it should not make any difference.

I observed that Homekit Controller might take some time to discover new devices. Are you sure that the factory reset has really worked?

Is your Bulb paired with the Nanoleaf App?

Maybe reset the device again.

Were you able to get multiple lights to connect or just one?

I will give this another try, I was having the same experiences as @MegaKleinhirn mentioned after a factory reset.

factory reset process you used was 'Hold the power and brightness up (+) buttons on the controller for 5 seconds." - correct?

Yes, thats how i did it like described by Nanoleaf

Here is the full quote from Nanoleaf how to perform the reset:

ā€œhold the power and brightness up (+) buttons on the Controller for 5 sec. These buttons must be pressed simultaneously, as pressing them one after the other will not work. If the reset is successful, the Lightstrip will flash white three times, and then itā€™s ready to be paired as well!ā€

After that it worked as expected.

I have Two Nanoleaf Essentials Strips. Iā€™ve managed only ONCE to have one of those strips discovered by HA, but it would not connect with code, just throws unhandled error. Does anyone has specific alghoritm? Maybe via nanoleaf app this could somehow work?

How long did it take to actually discover the strip?

Immediately when i disconnect it from Apple Home. In the meantime i have added the Strip as Thread device, also my Eve Energy. The reaction time for the Strip is quite impressive and faster as Zigbee.

You can also reset the strip. But in this case you must add the strip again to Apple Home and make sure that protocol switch to Thread. You can check this with the Eve App. Then only delete it from Home, dont reset! The information will be kept on the device. Next you should be able to add as Thread device when you have a Homepod as border router.

Hey all,

HAP over Thread was only enabled by default in 2022.10 so make sure youā€™re updated.

Make sure youā€™ve either

  • used the Android Nanoleaf app to get the devices on Thread
  • used the iOS Home or Nanoleaf app to get the devices on Thread & then unpaired (but NOT factory reset) them

They should then show up as a discovered device for the HomeKit Controller.

Let me know how it goes. I wrote most of the HAP/Thread code so Iā€™m happy to help with weird issues.

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Thank you for your work! This worked for me.

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By unpair and not factory reset, do you mean, add lightstrip to Home app, then remove from home app without factory resetting?

@thefreymaster exactly. Just make sure it switches to Thread first. Most devices will happily unpair & immediately advertise that they can be re-paired, some need a gentle reboot, and at least one device doesnā€™t deal with the unpair process well at all. Let us know how it goes!

I have done all of the steps multiple times, and canā€™t get it to pair to HA. I always get this message: ā€œThis accessory is already paired to another device. Please reset the accessory and try again.ā€ any ideas as to why?

Iā€™ve got six of the Essential Lightstrips, Iā€™ve gotten two of them to pair so far. I canā€™t get the the rest to add. Of the two, one stopped responding. Maybe it was too far from the thread edge router? Iā€™m going to try again now. Is there a way to see a more detailed failure log? Opening the debugger I see that I get an error of pairing_code: "pairing_failed"

@w0nderward whatā€™s your accessory? Iā€™d start by checking a few things, if you havenā€™t already:

  • You may need to factory reset if the accessory isnā€™t paired to anything but marked unpairable
  • Can you pair using the iOS Home app, unpair, and then repair without taking any other action?
  • If not, try performing a soft reset (toggle the light switch, pull the battery, push a button) & see if that allows pairing again
  • If still not, there is a chance that your device falls into the category of ā€œthis method wonā€™t workā€ & youā€™ll need to wait for Thread provisioning to work through HA (although there will still be gotchas if your BR is an Apple device since they hide the Thread credentials away).
  • Finally, if you succeed at any point above, retry with HA while watching the logs. If you succeed with iOS Home but fail with HA, you are likely getting a splat during pairing & we can fix that.

@thefreymaster Settings ā†’ System ā†’ Logs ā†’ Load Full Logs (at the bottom)