I’m taking my first steps into home automation and in the hope of making my life easier have just become the proud owner of a Home Assistant Green and a SkyConnect dongle.
I’ve connected the HA Green to my router via ethernet and am now all set up with the HA application running in my browser and connecting to the Green. However, when I plug the SkyConnect into either of the USB sockets on the Green (using the supplied USB extension cable), nothing shows up in the HA application in my browser under devices.
I’ve followed the troubleshooting advice of:
Waiting a while (I’m not sure how long is meant by this, but I’ve waited at least half an hour between plugging in attempts).
Clicking on ‘show ignored installations’
Refreshing the browser
The only thing I can think that I might have done to hinder this process is I did originally try plugging the SkyConnect into my laptop to connect it to a virtual machine that I was testing out HA with, but I gave up on that because I couldn’t get it to connect there!
Is there any way I can confirm that the SkyConnect is not dud or that I have not somehow broken it?
Check under UI->Settings->Hardware->All Hardware and see if there is a /dev/ttyUSBx. If you don’t see anything (and this is the only stick plugged in), then yeah it might be a dud. However if there is something there, but nothing indicates its a SkyConnect or from Nabu Casa, we are finding that some of the latest batches of SkyConnects are not programmed with the proper USB IDs, and this keeps HA from auto-discovering the SkyConnect.
I’ve found the following under Settings>System>Hardware. The “Silicon_Labs_CP2102N_USB_to_UART_Bridge_Controller” is the same device name I see when plugging the SkyConnect into my laptop, so I think it could be related. I’m not sure why HA isn’t detecting it as a SkyConnect integration/device though. I’m not sure if anyone can read anything into this from the HA hardware log.
Looks like it is one of those that didn’t get programmed properly with SkyConnect/NabuCasa USB IDs.
I don’t know of a work-around for the auto-discovery, but if you are using it only for ZHA, then it should still work fine. If you are going to use it with HA Thread, then the HA Add-ONs for Thread won’t recoginize it and reflash it. You should probably contact the seller you got it from and let them know of the problem.
My immediate plans are just ZHA but I’d rather be future proofed. Do you know if the problem is with whole batches of SkyConnects or more random? (I’m wondering if I get a replacement from the same seller if it’s likely to have the same problem).
I’ve seen 4 reports on this Forum just in the last couple of days from newly purchased SkyConnects, so my guess is yes, your replacement will likely have the same issue.