solar basin
Looking to add my level bolt lock that just got matter to home assistant. I was thinking my Bluetooth proxy would just pick it up and add it but seems I miss understood what matter is as it wants a wifi connection..
I guess this would be matter over thread? I have both matter (beta) and thread running on home assistant however when I select add matter device it still wants to connect back via wifi
Any ideas or what I might be doing wrong?
daring schooner
you gotta step back and take a better understand of the matter platform
What Matter is, is a communication standard that outlines how devices recieve command messages and communicate back to the central controller. It is agnostic to the delivery mechanism of these commands, so it can be Wifi or Ethernet or Thread or whatever and how Matter devices connect to your controller is dependent on what the device vendor has built into the thing.
Bluetooth is only used for the initial commissioning process where the device and controller exchange network and fabric authentication keys and then it's never used again.
I am looking at the upgrade modules for the Level Bolt.. There's a WiFi option and there's a Thread option.
During the commissioning process, both Apple and Google checks if your mobile device is on the same network as the Matter device. This should be self-explanatory for WiFi but it's worth keeping in mind that Thread also operates on the IPV6 layer of your local network. It's not going off doing its own thing.
The current implementation of Matter in Home Assistant kinda hides away the ability to commission via a Bluetooth radio because it's not a sensible option for most people. For one it's much better to use the Bluetooth radio on your mobile device where you can get close to the Matter device than it would be to use the radio on your server which might be rooms away, but for another the Python Matter Server must commandeer a bluetooth radio on its own. You don't get to use the same bluetooth radio for both Matter commissioning and the rest of your needs in Home Assistant. I also don't know if it supports bluetooth proxies? It might only work with radios you actually have hooked up to your server? Not sure about that.
solar basin
Your right.. I assumed new tech should just work 🙂 and that was a bad assumption.. lol
My wifi SSID shares 2.4 and 5ghz and the device did not like that. Dropped the 5ghz off the SSID and was able to connect the lock to google home hub max. Now having issues sharing the device over to home assisant.
daring schooner
what are you running into
solar basin
range of errors, but basically "cant setup device"
might have a range issue from the google home to the lock.. might move it closer to try
solar basin
prisma tusk
Hi - Just joined the Home Assistant Discord a few minutes ago and saw your post. I have 4 Level Bolts which I upgraded to Matter/Thread and have paired to Homekit, Home Assistant and Alexa.
The journey to get the locks paired with my Home Automation took a few weeks. My only Thread Boarder Router when I began this process was one of my 4 Apple TVs. 3 of the Apple TVs don't have the Thread radio. The Apple TV that does support Thread is connected to my Great Room TV on the other side of the wall from the actual TV, located in my Master Bedroom Closet where I have a 1/2 rack with a Mac Mini, Denon AVR, NAS and other equipment. With the Apple TV located in the closet, none of my Level Bolts were in range of the radio and I had no other Matter devices at the time.
To get the Bolts paired, I connected the Apple TV to a computer monitor and plugged it in a couple feet away from the lock I was pairing. I discovered I also needed to make sure my iPhone was connected to 2.4GHz WiFi, so made that adjustment in Unifi. To put the Level Bolt into paitring mode, you need to take out the battery and then "Add Accessory" in Apple Home, use the QR Code Level emailed you, and as long as you pair the lock within 10 minutes, it should add with no problem.
Once I went through this process with all 4 locks and connected my Apple TV to my Denon in my rack, all 4 locks were again out of range and couldn't be controlled (although paired - so they were not responding).
prisma tusk
I have an open floor plan with an Amazon Echo on my kitchen island, which is centrally located for 3 of the 4 locks. I had an old Echo, so did the Amazon trade-in program on a new Echo that has Thread. I thought this would fix my connection issues with at least 3 of the 4 locks. Once I got it set up, I had to again make my Apple TV "mobile" and bring it within range of each Level Bolt so I could go into Apple Home and "Turn On Pairing Mode" for each lock. I again had to take the battery out of the lock, then once it connected to Apple Home, generate the pairing code, then go into the Amazon Alexa app and add a new Matter device using that code (all within 10 minutes of putting the battery back into the Level Bolt).
I then had all 4 Level Bolts showing up in Apple Home as well as Alexa. Once I out the Apple TV back in place in my rack, 2 of my Level Bolts connected into my Thread network via the Echo, but 2 were out of range.
I then went to Amazon and purchased a 4-pack of onvis S4 Matter Smart Plugs, and placed one generally half way to the Echo. I then had all 4 Level Bolts connected to the Thread network.
That was a few weeks ago. Since that time, I added a ZBT-1 to my Home Assistant Core, so it is now an Open Thread Boarder Router. It's running in a VM on my Mac Mini in that same rack, however, I use a USB dongle which comes out under the TV on the wall, so the dongle is in the open in the Great Room, and can connect to most everything.
I don't like the look of those Smart Plugs everywhere, so my plan is to upgrade a few of my wall outlets to Matter and a few of my in-wall Dimmers to enhance the thread network even more. Then I can loose the Smart Plugs.
BTW, the Level Bolts are so much more responsive then they were connected via Bluetooth into Apple Home. Although this took a lot longer than I had hoped, the Level Bolts work very well and happy with the upgrade
solar basin
Thanks for the update. I am still having issues with matter and the google home. My bolt also randomly restarts, I never got it working well since new 2 years ago.