I’ve been having a devil of a time getting an iHome iSP5 HomeKit smart plug added to Home Assistant. It is discovered in HA, but in attempting to configure it I constantly get the error message: Device refused to add pairing as it is already pairing with another controller.
This device was paired to HomeKit previously. But I removed it, using the iOS Home app, and also reset the device as per iHome’s instructions. (I’m pretty sure the reset worked since it then needs to be added back to the WiFi network…and it’s no longer showing in the Home app.) I’ve done this full reset process twice now, and still I get the “refused” message.
I figured out a solution. What was actually going on wasn’t what the error suggested. I finally noticed in the logs an error message that suggested the hardware PIN was incorrect.
Turns out the PIN wasn’t incorrect, but I was entering it without dashes. And despite HA UI not mentioning this, HA does requires the dashes (as of 2019/2020). This isn’t obvious since Apple interfaces do not have the user enter dashes, and it seems some hardware vendors don’t even include the dashes.
I’ve filed a bug report on this. But until this little issue is smoothed out, make sure to include the dashes in the HomeKit PIN, or add them if they’re not there to make the format “123-45-678”.