I’m looking to start adding other devices into HA like contact sensors and water leak sensors, but don’t know much about setting up thread. I currently have an AppleTV which I read can work in HA as a TBR. What are the pros/cons of using the AppleTV versus getting something dedicated like one of those SMLight adapters?
Also, if I did end up getting an SMLight adapter, does it mesh with the AppleTV to extend the network? Or can devices only connect to one or the other TBR in this situation?
The easiest way is to use Apple TVs as TBRs and Apple Home to commission devices to these Apple Thread network, and then have Apple Home “Share” a device with HA’s Matter Server (not HA OTBR needed).
If you like tinkering a lot and don’t mind a few trials and tribulations, then doing an HA based TBR will be just that. There are a lot of moving parts and people can get it going easily the first time, while others have to work at it.
The biggest challenge is Thread credential management, but it is possible in HA to take the AppleTV Thread credentials stored on you iOS mobile device and send them to HA. Once that is done, then the HA OTBR will migrate to use those particular Thread credentials and then you will have multiple TBRs on one Thread network. Having said that, I think it is not yet been proven how resilient this actually makes a Thread network. In theory it should be very resilient, but in practice there may still be some work to be done.