Hi, just bought the Xsky Smart Recessed Lighting 6 inch Color Changing Recessed Lights Matter Light. As I was having the hardest of times with the Tuya smart WIFi lights - a constant and never ending disconnect ( sooo frustrating!) So I bought 24 of these counting that they will be 1000 times more reliable!
But I am not seeing an Xsky integration on Home Assistant. They are matter compantible and since I got two sets of 12 - I will have two matter xsky hubs.
As it turns out, you don’t NEED the Matter integration and, in fact, it makes the entire configuration more difficult. Here are the steps for adding the lights using ZHA and Zigbee:
How to work with Home Assistant.
1. You don't need the Matter Gateway that's provided if you already have Zigbee in your HA installation. But you MUST use ZHA and NOT Zigbee2MQTT. See details later….
2. Download the LMK (Light Matter Kit) from FEIBIT on your iPhone or Android
3. Create a test harness that allows you to power one of the light boxes and lights.
4. Add the Switch to Home Assistant
a. Go to ZHA and Add a Device
b. Install the batteries in the wireless switch. If this is the first time you've installed batteries, then the device will be in pairing mode and ZHA will detect and install it. If it's not detected, then use the reset pin and reset the wireless switch by holding it down for 5 seconds and releasing
5. Now upgrade the firmware in the wireless switch
a. Start the LMK software and make sure your phone has Bluetooth turned on.
b. Remove one of the batteries, wait 5 seconds and re-insert the battery. The device will look for the LMK for about 10 seconds so it's important that the LMK is already running.
c. When the LMK finds the switch, you will be offered a firmware upgrade. If it says it's already updated then you're ready to go.
6. Upgrade the firmware in the light
a. Start the LMK software and make sure your phone has Bluetooth turned on
b. Apply power to the light
c. The LMK should see the light within about 10 seconds and offer you an upgrade to the firmware. Upgrade the firmware.
d. Repeat for each light
7. Use the Switch to install the lights into ZHA
a. You can either add each light after the firmware upgrade or upgrade the firmware in all of the lights and then go back and add them into HA. I found it faster to do one light at a time and then set the light aside.
b. Set the switch in connection mode by pressing 4 short times and then one long time until it blinks slowly. If the switch blinks quickly, then your firmware update didn't work. Try again.
c. Now apply power to one of the lights. (You can do multiple lights at the same time but in my experience it never links to more than a couple at a time.)
d. ZHA will "see" the light added through the switch and then add it to your configuration.
e. You can either keep the randomly assigned light name or assign your own light names. I chose to rename the lights, update the Area and enable all of the sensors that weren't enabled by default while I had each light plugged in.
f. Repeat the process for each light.
8. Now you're ready to install the lights and they will all be recognized by HA. A couple of other things to consider:
a. If you break the lights into different groups then create a Group Helper and name the set of lights so they are easy to control as a unit
b. I know there's a way to apply different effects to a set of lights but haven't figured out how to do that yet. If someone knows, please add the directions to this thread!
I am about to buy these lights, they look like amazing value, really good price and a lot of functionality, I am just hesitant because is a generic brand and I saw a couple of very bad reviews
It took me a while to get them to work with Zigbee in Home Assistant. That’s why I documented the specific sets in an earlier post. If you follow the directions in that post you’ll have them all working in less than 2 hours. Most of the time is getting the power to the lights.
Thanks for the detailed steps to integrate it with Home Assistant. I got 8 lights connected. These are really good lights in my opinion. I am only worried about losing the remote as it’s integrated using the remote. I was hoping these lights can connect via zigbee without the remote or the hub.
John, I agree with you, it’s better to connect to HA through a zigbee dongle, but to connect to Matter Server through the Bridge is more common way. Here I noted down the steps:
First, here are some pictures showing the successful connection of the Xsky Matter Bridge to Apple HomePod, ensuring that this method is indeed feasible. However, since Matter technology and the apps of various platforms are constantly being updated, some new issues may arise.
Here are the steps I tested on my latest HA system, and I believe you will get the same result if you update your HA system to the latest version and follow the same steps:
In “Settings” → “Devices & Services” → “Device” → “Add Device,” select “Add Matter Device.” - Note: At this point, be sure to restart the Matter Bridge once, and wait for the indicator light to turn green before proceeding to the next step. If the scan is unsuccessful after restarting, you can try resetting the Matter Bridge using the reset hole on the back.
Once completed, the “Smart Bridged Gateway” will appear in the Matter device list. If the bridge has been reset, there will be no other devices at this point; if other Zigbee devices have already been added to the bridge, all added devices will be displayed.
Activate the pairing mode via the Matter Bridge’s “Share Device” feature:
- At this point, you will see the RGB indicator light on the bridge change colors, indicating that the bridge has successfully entered pairing mode.
At this stage, there are two methods to reset the device:
Traditional method: Reset the device according to the manual, for example, reset the switch via the reset hole, and for the light, turn the power on and off five times (be sure not to turn off the light too quickly, the light should remain off for at least 1 second). - After resetting a device, within 10-20 seconds, the light will blink three times, indicating that it has successfully joined the network. The bridge’s indicator light will blink twice white after each device joins successfully.
PowerOn Link Fast Pairing Method: After successfully adding the switch to the network using the method mentioned above, press the ON/OFF button on the switch four times, then long-press it until the indicator light on the switch flashes slowly, indicating that it has entered PowerOn Link pairing mode. At this point, turn off the power to all the lights and then turn them back on; the lights will blink once to indicate that they have joined the network successfully. Using this method, you can quickly add all the lights to the bridge. If not all lights successfully join on the first try, repeat the process until all the lights blink once.
Finally, reopen the Matter integration in HA to check whether the number of devices has been updated. If the devices have not been updated, click “Reload” to refresh the device list.
I can confirm this is very easy to set up with Matter on HA. I did have 6 of my lights become unresponsive. I think it was a result of some electrical work I had done. But after I reset that group by cycling power 5 times and putting Matter into share mode evething stated working again.
However I have noticed that when I activate a scene with a group of these lights, they respond individually instead of all at the same time. Depending on your application this could be annoying. This could be because of HA’s implementation of Matter or Xsky. Matter does have a group command but I haven’t investigated to see what is sent when a scene is activated.
Currently, when using Matter to control Xsky lights, it seems like the HA Matter server is sending individual control commands. Hopefully, this will improve in the future. However, a useful trick is to install an Xsky Dimmer Switch in places where you need group control. You can bind one of the groups to this switch, allowing for much faster control. Additionally, it will continue to work even if the gateway goes offline. I recommend giving it a try!
I’ve been using a Wi-Fi version of these downlights for the past three years, and it’s been a love-hate relationship. I’ve been waiting for a Zigbee version to come out so I could hopefully bind them directly to a Zigbee wall switch and maintain control even if my Wi-Fi or hub goes down.
You mentioned that this can be done using the Xsky Dimmer Switch. I assume, then, that it could also be done with any wall switch that supports Zigbee 3.0 with direct binding but I figured I’d ask to see if you can confirm this. I’d like to bind them to Inovelli Zigbee 3.0 wall switches, which do support binding.
I’m not the only one confused about the purpose of the included switch. Is the switch required to use the lights even after initial setup? That is, does it behave as a bridge/proxy of sorts?
Or, once I have the lights on my Zigbee network, can I command them directly with Zigbee2Mqtt via my coordinator, or via binding to something like an Inovelli dimmer?