WTH: Homekit Integration

Month of "What the heck?!"
#1

OK, surely thus may be a bit tricky and difficult but i would really like to control my Eve Aqua for plant watering dependant on the data of my weather station from within HA.
Currently need to do it manually which is really a heck!

Nevertheless, thanks to all devs who made this great piece of software with all add-ons, Integrations etc. possible!

#2

You are right - this is a biggy. Right now this means extending our homekit library to do BLE HAP. Right now it only does IP. We (I) know how to do this, but its a large protocol and its unclear what underlying bluetooth library we would use that would offer good Home Assistant integration. There was a working prototype of this but the python bluetooth library did not integrate well with asyncio (and hence HA) so it was unstable and unreliable. It’s going to be a big project to sort all that out.

There is some good news though. I have an Eve Extend, which is marketed as a range extender. But at its heart its a WiFi to BLE bridge. I followed the following process:

  • Paired an Eve Smoke, Eve Motion, Eve Energy, Eve Thermo and Eve Extend to an iPhone with the Eve app
  • Under the Eve Extend section of the app I moved each of the other devices to the Extend. This “re-paired” them to the bridge, and took a while, but iOS could still see them after - now through the bridge over wifi.
  • I unpaired the Eve Extend from iOS. It’s not clear what happens but in the current firmware build the accessories stay paired to the Extend.
  • I paired the Eve Extend with Home Assistant

All 5 devices were then visible in my Home Assistant and even events from the motion detector seem to work.

You need an iOS device to follow this process as you need to have paired over HomeKit BLE first. Theres no way (that I know) for the Eve Extend to directly pair with the other accessories unless they are first paired with the same iOS controller.

#3

I also have an Eve extend. Will try to di the same as you and see if it also works with an Eve Aqua.

As other things also need bridges i think first step would be to use an Eve extend device.

Will try after the holidays. Thanks for your hint.

#4

Question:
I am right you activated homekit in HA as described in the docs?
Does unpairing Eve extend mean resetting it?

#5

If you use the “+” sign under integrations and select “homekit controller” you don’t need to change anything in your config, it will automatically load it.

If the zeroconf stuff is enabled (possible via default_config?) then it may even show up under the integrations view as ready for pairing without having to click on the “+” icon. But thats optional.

It won’t show up while its paired with your iPhone, though.

And it won’t show up unless its already connected to your wifi.

It’s important to set it up with your iPhone and then remove the pairing on your iPhone. Do not reset the device, and definitely do not use the hardware reset button, as that will unpair it from the other devices and make it forget your wifi connection. You can only configure the pairings with the Eve app.

#6

Sorry for the late reply. Thanks for all your great help! It worked!

Following way in my summary:

  1. setup Eve Aqua and Eve extend as described in the Eve docs.
  2. Assign Eve Aqua to Eve extend
  3. remove Eve Extend from hine within the Eve App
  4. remove any schedules from within Eve app (otherwise these will still be active)
  5. install Honekit Controller from integrations. Endure you are near to Eve extend so it can find it. if it asks for a cide, this is the one above the QR code of your eve manual.

Hope it helps others.
Now i am abke to do all the cool stuff from within HA like automatic pausing when it rains.
Anyone already did some logic here (pregerably node red)?

1 Like
#7

Can you set up Eve devices in Eve app after you do this? For instance temperature calibration for Eve thermostats?

#8

Not as i know. My Eve Aqua is then paired with JA (Addon HomeKit Controller).