#What’s a good Ethernet based thread border router?

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

steady ore
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My Hass is a VM in VMware ESXi. Can someone recommend a good thread border router that’s network based? I want to start adding Thread/Matter devices like the EveHome products.

Ideally an Ethernet based device.

Much appreciated

steady ore
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This might be suitable https://hackaday.io/page/22272-how-to-setup-a-open-thread-border-router-with-raspberry-pi-and-connect-the-thread-sensor-tag
Thoughts?

How to setup a Open Thread Border Router with Raspberry Pi and conn...

With this tutorial I want to show you how easy it is to setup your own Open Thread Border Router at Home using a Raspberry Pi an nRF52840 USB Dongle and connecting the open source Thread Sensor Tag [https://www.tindie.com/products/23918/] to measure Light, Temperature, Pressure and Humidity with ultra low power

COMPONENTS YOU NEED ARE

  • a R...
fair path
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yeah, at the moment I think the most reliable way to get an ethernet connected thread border router would be an rpi running HAOS with the OTBR add-on installed (even if you're not using any other functionality of home assistant on it directly, HAOS is set up with all the network support and some kernel patches to make the thread border router work well)

steady ore
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Thanks. Another problem I'm having is flashing the nRF52840
I've followed several different guides but I can't seem to get a functional uf2 file for the ot-rcp.

Any chance you or anyone else reading have a known functional copy of the uf2 they can share?

steady ore
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@fair path good call on just sticking HAOS on the Pi4. OpenThread seems to be able to access the Nordic nRF.

The problem now is my main Hass VM sees this as an “other network” called ha-thread-e342 but I can’t get it to let me use that OpenThread border router. Any idea how to fix this?

steady ore
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Ok I managed to get the thing connected after enabling the API port but Matter devices fail to connect

steady ore
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Ugh. This was deceptively simple, but it appears there are conflicting guides all over the internet.
For anyone reading this:

Between out of date instructions on how to flash the Nordic nrf52840, or if you even need an OpenThread router, there's a lot of bad and conflicting guides.

What finally worked for me:

  1. Set wired AppleTV as preferred hub and the Thread network it's part of as the preferred network
  2. Make sure Hass virtual machine has IPv6 enabled on eth0. (Your actual network doesn't need IPv6. Thread will handle that)
  3. Use companion app to send Thread keys over to Hass from AppleTV
  4. Start adding existing Thread+Matter devices following the HomeKit instructions

No additional Raspberry Pis or thread antennas were actually needed.