@@smart_home_australia I am struggling with getting my HomePod minis to show in HA. When I try to add HomeKit Bridge with only media players, a bunch of other mediaplayers in my setup turn up (also an Apple TV) but NOT the Homepod minis? I hope you can help, as I feel I have all the internet about this matter by now! 🙂 Maybe a video about the Homekit controller would help?
Once you get the hang of how it integrates it's a revolution. I love the HomeKit interface but it's frustrating around how closed the eco system is. Now you get the best of both world. Enjoy !!
Yes I too would like a Homekit devices video. I like many have already set up an extensive HK environment and would like to see all devices in HA in the easiest possible way. I also have many other Hubs and devices from Aqara, Eve, Shelly, Casambi to name a few but a few that either directly connect (Home compatible) or use Thread or Zigbee via Hubs. I also use Homebridge to integrate non HK devices. HA is the next logical step but seems long winded from my 2 day old experience with the “Yellow Box” HA installation. Tks
Thanks Mark, you sound like me 4 years ago, a complex, multihub experience that was difficult to triage and literally needed a separate switch to manage the number of hubs I needed to connect. Perceiver with your Yellow, I assure you the journey is not as bad a many make out, but the destination is worth it.
Thanks for the feedback. I can do the deep dive on the next video on this topic as it is something that II use extensively myself. It all a part of the constant battle of tuning your videos to the audience. I aim at the beginner / intermediate. But I might start to raise the bar and put out some more advanced topics as it seems to be asked for more and more.
Thank you so much for this informative video. Would you be able to make a video for the opposite integration - I’ve got a bunch of nanoleaf RGB downlights fully integrated into HomeKit, but can’t for the life of me integrate it into my home assistant green. When pairing it always fails. Your help would be much appreciated. Thanks, Charles
@@smart_home_australiathat would be great and much appreciated. I’m still struggling with this so hopefully you do get some time to make the video. I’ll be monitoring your channel like a hawk 😊
Thanks for the sub! I plan on getting into alot more Apple HomeKit in the future, I love the interface (as we all do with Apple) but dislike the closed ecosystem (although necessary for security purposes).
Apple Home Kit needs somewhere to "run", these are currently limited to HomePod's Apple TV's and iPad's. So if you want to integrate to HA then you must have setup Apple HomeKit previously on one of these devices.
@@smart_home_australia seems the many videos online the people "just" configure HA HomeKit bridge and problem solved... as I just need to 2 simples integrations (Arriving home, and other leaving) not p€possible buy more apple devices to control...
Hi, I have just started using Home Assistant recently installed on the green box. I have already a home environment with Meross and Eve sockets as well as Meross relays and Netatmo weather station. All using Homekit controler. I like to have a video of the Homekit Device option. Thanks
Sounds like you are already well on the path. I've had afew requests for the HomeKit Device video and am thinking about it. The issue is that once installed device is pretty much seemless, so the video would be alot of triaging different issues that you might over come (try it, SETTING> DEVICES and SERVCIES >ADD INTEGRATION> APPLE> HOMEKIT DEVICE, it will bring up all Home Kit devices to pair). The point everyone will bring up is "where is" and that's going to be a list of possible solutions, but I cant predict all and hence the comments will get out of control. See the issue ? :)
Please do a deep dive on the difference between HomeKit Bridge and HomeKit Device in HA. Also would it make sense to create a HK Bridge similar to the “by Room” suggestion above and create multiple HK Bridges by “Device type” while still keeping the Bridge library in the HK “System” Room you created in your video? One of the difficulties I have is understanding how to add or remove individual devices and attributes to HK after the HASS Bridges are set-up in HK. Maybe that’s where HomeKit Devices in HA comes in?
As your connected/smart home environment grows you may well start to bump into limitations. Having multiple bridges allows you to work around the 150 device per bridge limit. The reason why I moved from bridge by “Device Type” to by Room is it reduced the work required to move the device to the correct room after. When I had all bridges in a single room all devices I included would first be placed in that room… then I would need to manually move them to the correct rooms. FYI the Home Assistant naming of HomeKit integrations is pretty hideous. Simplified… use HomeKit Bridges for exposing Home Assistant stuff to HomeKit and HomeKit Devices to pull in HomeKit stuff into Home Assistant.
Thank you for sharing your thought process. Part of my issue is that my devices have been repurposed as my Smart Home grows and I add additional devices, so I am concerned about the designation of HA Bridges by Room strategy. I know my idea of organizing by Device will involve greater setup time to start, but I also want the greatest flexibility to move devices from room to room as my ecosystem grows.
@@jpileggi1 Your reasoning makes complete sense to me… I have shifted the work to ensuring each device I add to HA is put in a Area… all in all it sounds like a perfect opportunity for some enterprising person to build an automation to sync anything designated to be in a HA area with a given HomeKit Bridge…
Agreed, that would be fabulous if they could implement a Sync function. When you consider that 18.7% of people use the HomeKit Bridge I'm surprised that the HA guys have not through of this, or have they !! ;)
Hi Many thanks for this video it explains a great deal Can I ask my best route for my situation- I am an apple Home user with Aqara Meross and Eve devices all working extremely well I purchased Home Assistant Green and Sky connect purely to allow me add some non supported devices to HomeKit . I only want to use Home assistant for this purpose and not to replace my Apple home . So if I expose the bridge only will I keep my Apple home intact and then just add additional devices one at a time via Home assistant without breaking my Apple home Thanks in advance
Yes. :) Adding extra devices to HA and then using the Bridge to "send" then back into HomeKit would work. Just be careful through, as soon as you plug in HA, it will "discover" all those Home Kit devices that are on your network. Then you need to make a decision if you ignore them or bring them into HA also. You are going to get into the situation where you need to decide which is the "master" and which is the "slave" system.
First of all, I would like to thank you for the excellent video! But now I have a problem... I have a temperature and humidity sensor that I would like to expose to HomeKit. I followed all the procedures shown in the video and everything went well and the sensors show the correct data, but after a few seconds they all become "no response" and if I remove them and include again, they start to work but only for a few more seconds. Could you help me? Thank you very much
Hi, that sounds like a nightmare to resolve. I personally have never seen this issue myself but I did some hunting around on the internet and found this problem can be related to network connectivity or mDNS (multicast DNS) issues: 1) Ensure your router's IGMP settings are configured correctly. 2) Check if your 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks are separated. 3) Verify that mDNS is working properly on your network. Some routers may have issues with mDNS, which is crucial for HomeKit communication. Other possible resolutions: Check your network connectivity from Home Assistant: - Use the Terminal add-on to ping your router and external DNS targets. - Verify that Home Assistant can see your gateway and nameserver. - When configuring the HomeKit integration, try including only the specific entities you want to expose, rather than entire domains. - Check the Home Assistant logs for any error messages related to the HomeKit integration or the specific sensors you're trying to expose. - Ensure your iOS devices and HomeKit hubs (Apple TV, HomePod, etc.) are updated to the latest software versions. Good luck and let us know how you go.
@@smart_home_australia Hello, thanks for the tips and sorry for the delay in responding. I was running several tests and I believe that it could be a problem related to mDNS, because when I try to ping my server through the homeassistant.local address, it only works for a few seconds after the server is restarted, just like my HomeKit devices. However, I couldn't find a solution for this (the only way I can access my server is directly through the local IP (192.168...) or through my external URL that I configured using Duckdns). I don't believe it's a problem with my router, because I have other servers on my local network, such as a TrueNas Scale, and I can ping them perfectly at any time using my-server-name.local. My homeassistant is hosted on a virtual machine inside my TrueNas Scale server, but both have different IPs from each other. I believe that this shouldn't be the problem, but I'm already out of ideas on how to solve this.
Sounds like you have tried everything that I would have tried. You are now into CCNA territory and black magical arts. Sorry I cant be of any more help. Does anyone else have an ideas to try?
Thanks for another amazing video! What do you do when HomeKit bridge recognise the device(which is a light switch) as a Switch, and not a light? Just add it as a switch and reconfigure it inside the Home app into Light? Also, Say the Switch added is actually a gate but recognised as a Switch. How to redo it into a gate/window/garage door? The only options Home app lets you choose is Fan/Light/Switch. Thank you and I hope you make more of these videos!
Thanks Dr Z :) Depends which side it wrongly classifies it. One Apple Home, select the device, press the cog in the bottom right, change "display as" to fan, light, or power point. On the HA side, SETTINGS>DEVICES and SERVICES> HOME BRIDGE> DEVICES> Select DEVICE> Select main control>COG>Display as> select appropriately. Regards changing the icon to something outside of what is offered, currently I don't think that you can, yet :) Check out the following for more details Ref: www.makeuseof.com/how-to-change-device-icons-apple-home-app/
Is there a way to find out which bridge in Home Assistant correlates to one in Home Bridge? I added a few (before I saw your video) and did not update the names. I have bridges in HomeKit Bridge that are not being used and I want to remove them, but the bridge names in HomeKit don’t match the names in HomeKit Bridge.
Kind of :) To identify which Home Assistant bridge corresponds to a specific bridge in HomeKit, I'd suggest the follow steps: 1) Check bridge details in HomeKit: - Open the Home app on your iOS device - Tap on the bridge you want to identify - Scroll down to find the "Bridge" section - Look for any identifying information like the name or serial number 2) Compare with Home Assistant: - In Home Assistant, go to Settings > Devices & Services - Find the HomeKit Bridge integrations - Click on each bridge to view its details - Look for matching information like the name or device identifiers 3) Use process of elimination: - Disable one bridge at a time in Home Assistant - Check which devices become unresponsive in HomeKit I'm sure you have tried a lot of these already, but there is no definitive way that I'm aware of.
I’m just getting started, and I’m moving from a HomeKit-only setup to Home Assistant + HomeKit setup. I’ve already done what’s in your video so my HA devices can be passed along to HomeKit, but I’m told by several sources I need to add my HomeKit Devices to Home Assistant first, then let the bridge bring them back over to HomeKit. The problem is when I try to add a new HomeKid device I don’t have the option to add something new, I only get a dropdown showing me the HomeKit devices already on my network.
HomeKit Bridge integration allows you to make your Home Assistant entities available in Apple HomeKit. Whereas, The HomeKit Device integration allows you to connect accessories with the “Works with HomeKit” logo to Home Assistant, once they have been paired within HomeKit. I believe this was a change from before, but was not using this integration previously. As an example, I have a love hate relationship, with Lifx globes, great globes, terrible pairing implementation, where if you want to manually pair, you need to put them into pairing mode for 15 minutes BEFORE they will show up outside of an HomeKit pairing mode. I battled with Lifx support for months until I had an epiphany. I just paired them with HomeKit, and they automatically showed up in Home Assistant through the HomeKit Device integration. Now they work perfectly. Looks like I might need to make a video about this as I have received a few questions about it. But basically by implementing both integrations you get all devices in both ecosystems (unless you restrict the devices or domains).
Sorry I think I’m misunderstanding as well still. So in an ideal situation if the lifx globes could have more easily paired with home assistant you would do that first, and then include in the bridge?
@@AlexGower Yes, as a general rule you should always pair direct with HA. In most cases this gives you local control, quicker response and detaches you from the manufacturers web services (just in case they go bust or stop support). The use HomeKit Bridge integration to pass control back to Apple HomeKit. Apple Device Integration is the converse of this, in that I added to Apple HomeKit and then HA discovered them and allowed control within HA. Going this way means that I do not have direct control of the lights and instead are passing the command to Apple HomeKit to action for me. Make sense???
Maybe my question is dumb, but is it possible to scan the HomeKit QR with 2 different devices (iphones)? once i scan it with my phone i cannot find it again to scan it with another one. Thanks a lot for your tutorials, keep going!
It’s a hit topic. I like the one bridge per domain for maintenance and issue identification. Others like one domain per room. I can see merit in both. I guess it’s just personal preference.
Thanks for great video. Would it be possible to integrate existing CBUS lights / smart switches (currently controlled by Wiser 2) into Home Assistant / HomeKit?
Sorry I have no experience with CBUS, but doing a little reading it sounds like yes. But with some additional hardware. forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/30x185k1
Hi! Thanks for sharing your knowledge! I’m new to smart home and am preparing to setup the HomeKit + HA combi. If I’m using HA to link up devices to HomeKit, do I need a HA Green?
You are most welcome. Technically you need a HA installation that will run HACS , so you must have a HA OS or Supervised installs (ref: www.home-assistant.io/installation/). HA Green is a great little device and perfect for new users, but in my opinion is not the best medium to long term option, check out my video about HA Green (ref: www.home-assistant.io/installation/) and then to finally make your decision watch the video for HA on a VM (ref: ruclips.net/video/VBXfvT9EiYo/видео.html). and I believe you will have your ultimate answer.
@@smart_home_australia thank you for taking the time to respond and explain! Really appreciate it! I’ll start with Green and slowly work my way around. If you have the time, can you consider making videos on how to add major players - google/xiaomi/smartthings onto HA please? I read a lot on the community but I haven’t really seen a video that provides step by step guide on how to do it like this video. Thank you!
Thanks :) Regards adding "the major players" yep, can do. Trouble will is that I'm an Alexa household and don't have Smartthings (anymore). Xiamoi on the other hand is Zigbee so is really straight forward, your choice is if you want to use ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT. ZHA is the built in protocol and super easy. SETTING > DEVICES and SERVICE > Add Integration > Add Zigbee device. For Z2MQTT, watch ruclips.net/video/sfsZF0R0HtE/видео.html, and that shows you all you need. Good luck and let me know if you need anything else.
I keep getting the "Accessory not found" message after scanning the QR code from HomeAssistant generated by the Apple HomeKit integration. I'm running HA in docker and iPhone with iOS 17.5. No ATV or HomePod as a hub. Any support?
There are afew reasons that I can think of: 1) Network issues - Make sure that the HomeKit server is listening on the IP address that your iOS clients are on. 2) mDNS issues - HomeKit protocol relies on mDNS (Multicast DNS) for discovery. If mDNS isn’t working correctly on your network, your iOS device won’t be able to find the HomeKit accessory. You can check the mDNS announcements using an mDNS browser. 3) HomeKit Accessory already paired - HomeKit accessories can only be paired with one controller at a time. If the accessory is already paired with another device (like your iPhone), you’ll need to remove it from that device before you can pair it with Home Assistant. 4) Network Optimization Settings - If you are using a UniFi network and have the network optimization settings on, then this can cause issues.
@@smart_home_australia I have the same issue. I’m running HA in a virtual machine and the bridge that I’ve set up can’t be found by the iphone. Btw there are some instructions at the home assistant site regarding docker issues with this.
Same here. Tried like 15 different things over past few hours and it just keeps timing out. No issues with any other hub or wifi hk device in my home so far, including Homebridge, and I can clearly see HASS bridge shows up in mDNS browser, so this definitely feels like a bug in HA or their HomeKit Bridge as I see a ton of people in the forums have the same issue and most don't end up solving it.
How do I get them certified so Siri will work, this is the whole reason I wanted to add all these different accessories to the HomeKit because I wanted to use Siri instead of Google. Thank you.
Hi, if you mean the certification warning when you add the devices? Then you don't need to get them certified. Add anyway and use Siri to control the device based on the name in Apple Home kit. Should work perfectly, although with limited functionality sometimes.
THats the thing, its not hard, if they are compliant and certified and already added to HK then its simply SETTINGS> DEVICES and SERVICES > ADD INTEGRATION > APPLE > HOMEKIT DEVICE and select the device, submit, done. The issue arises when the device is not listed.
I wonder if you could offer some advice. I have a Fingerbot switch, I use this to allow me to open my entry door. I originally set this up to work with home kit (YAML). However to invoke it I have say via Siri "Turn on Entrance" is it possible to change this to "Open Entrance" instead. Thank you for any help you may give & Best wishes.
Search for "Change Device Type of a Switch", depending on how the entity is set up you may be able to change the entity directly to the type you want so it has "Open" instead of "On", or you can use the Helper Integration to manually configure this.
Thanks TyPaff, that's a good way of changing the behaviour of an entity within Home Assistant. @Foggy3657, Go to SETTINGS > DEVICE and SERVICES > ENTITIES. Search for and select your entity. Press the COG in the top right, change the SHOW AS field as you would like the entity to be represented, ie. Switch, Outlet, Cover, Fan, Light, Lock, SIren or valve (which they spell with a lowercase "v" for some reason :)).
I have a few devices in home assistant that aren't appearing in homekit but the rest are. Is there something I can check to help re sync those up? Specifically I am not seeing my nest cameras in homekit despite them working in home assistant.
I found this article that talks through how to do it, but I have not tried it. Pls note this article is 2 years old. cln.io/blog/homeassistant-relink-homekit-bridge-to-homekit-again/
I think you are right. With the recent improvements in the Apple integrations things are looking very good. I'm planning on a follow-up video for the Apple Devices integration as there still seems to be some confusion about the two.
pfff, tried Innr sp120 import in Homeassistant yes With! power and voltage, added to Homedash > yes but Only switch no powermeasurement! tried Nous the same, even tried Zwave Fibaro 2 f types In Homeassistant power measurement, but in Homedash only switch. How can i measure in Homekit?
Yep, its not perfect, it does have limitation currently but they are working on it. I'm a big Apple user and know the benefits and limitation that a closed eco system provides. Lets hope the team can figure out how to get all entities bridged.
The jobs of integrations. I'm amazed that so many of them a tally work straight out of the box. I mean these are usually between two companies or entities that have not mutual alliance and yet 99.9% of integrations "just work". Geez i sound like an Apple advert lol
Nice video. From experience… I would suggest a couple of changes.. Create a bridge per room in HomeKit. Put the bridge in the correct room and not in any “SYSTEM” room. Once you establish the bridge in the room any subsequent changes to entities included will automatically be added to the correct room in HomeKit. Thankfully the old days of loosing connection and having to repair the bridge seem to be over but you will thank yourself if it happens and you don’t need to worry about putting the entities back in the correct room and not have everything show up in SYSTEM.
Great video! Thanks for sharing!
You’re welcome, it’s one of my favorite setups!
Paul, your tutorials are always so helpful. Add me to the list of those anxiously waiting for the HomeKit Devices tutorial. Thank you.
LOL... Will do! just waiting on a new Apple TV to arrive.
@@smart_home_australia I am struggling with getting my HomePod minis to show in HA. When I try to add HomeKit Bridge with only media players, a bunch of other mediaplayers in my setup turn up (also an Apple TV) but NOT the Homepod minis? I hope you can help, as I feel I have all the internet about this matter by now! 🙂 Maybe a video about the Homekit controller would help?
wow, didn't now that this was a thing. Great explanation, now I can make a better use of my HomeKit dashboard.
Once you get the hang of how it integrates it's a revolution. I love the HomeKit interface but it's frustrating around how closed the eco system is. Now you get the best of both world.
Enjoy !!
Yes I too would like a Homekit devices video. I like many have already set up an extensive HK environment and would like to see all devices in HA in the easiest possible way. I also have many other Hubs and devices from Aqara, Eve, Shelly, Casambi to name a few but a few that either directly connect (Home compatible) or use Thread or Zigbee via Hubs. I also use Homebridge to integrate non HK devices. HA is the next logical step but seems long winded from my 2 day old experience with the “Yellow Box” HA installation. Tks
Thanks Mark, you sound like me 4 years ago, a complex, multihub experience that was difficult to triage and literally needed a separate switch to manage the number of hubs I needed to connect.
Perceiver with your Yellow, I assure you the journey is not as bad a many make out, but the destination is worth it.
Would love the reverse option HomeKit to home assistant please Great videos as always
Yep, that one is either super simple, as in it does it automatically, or super complex when it doesn't. :)
Hi Paul, great video. I tried to do this some years back without success. After watching your video I’m ready to try it again. Thanks Eddie.
Thanks Eddie. I think you’ll walk it. If not we are here to help you 😊👍
Great video! Would love to see the couple of other videos you mentioned. Definitely want to see homekit devices integration.
I have it on the Wishlist. 🤞
This video is very useful resource for homekit and smart home topics. Thanks a lot! Please deep dive the next videos :)
Thanks for the feedback. I can do the deep dive on the next video on this topic as it is something that II use extensively myself. It all a part of the constant battle of tuning your videos to the audience. I aim at the beginner / intermediate. But I might start to raise the bar and put out some more advanced topics as it seems to be asked for more and more.
Thank you so much for this informative video. Would you be able to make a video for the opposite integration - I’ve got a bunch of nanoleaf RGB downlights fully integrated into HomeKit, but can’t for the life of me integrate it into my home assistant green. When pairing it always fails. Your help would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Charles
Hi Charles, yes its on the list of videos as it is a very frequent request. I just need to find the time :)
@@smart_home_australiathat would be great and much appreciated. I’m still struggling with this so hopefully you do get some time to make the video. I’ll be monitoring your channel like a hawk 😊
Thankyou Paul , this video is a huge help , subcribed . Thankyou !!!
Thanks for the sub! I plan on getting into alot more Apple HomeKit in the future, I love the interface (as we all do with Apple) but dislike the closed ecosystem (although necessary for security purposes).
Thanks David, I'm glad it helped out...
its possible to use without Apple Hubs as Apple TV or home pod?
Apple Home Kit needs somewhere to "run", these are currently limited to HomePod's Apple TV's and iPad's. So if you want to integrate to HA then you must have setup Apple HomeKit previously on one of these devices.
@@smart_home_australia seems the many videos online the people "just" configure HA HomeKit bridge and problem solved... as I just need to 2 simples integrations (Arriving home, and other leaving) not p€possible buy more apple devices to control...
@@smart_home_australia so even activating mDns multicast or other way. No possible?
@@sarpeeletronica Not that I'm aware, but if you find a way please let us all know. This would be a video all on its own.
A really clear video. Thank you for sharing it.
You're very welcome!
Hi, I have just started using Home Assistant recently installed on the green box. I have already a home environment with Meross and Eve sockets as well as Meross relays and Netatmo weather station. All using Homekit controler.
I like to have a video of the Homekit Device option.
Thanks
Sounds like you are already well on the path. I've had afew requests for the HomeKit Device video and am thinking about it. The issue is that once installed device is pretty much seemless, so the video would be alot of triaging different issues that you might over come (try it, SETTING> DEVICES and SERVCIES >ADD INTEGRATION> APPLE> HOMEKIT DEVICE, it will bring up all Home Kit devices to pair). The point everyone will bring up is "where is" and that's going to be a list of possible solutions, but I cant predict all and hence the comments will get out of control. See the issue ? :)
Great video , as always❤
Thanks again!
Please do a deep dive on the difference between HomeKit Bridge and HomeKit Device in HA.
Also would it make sense to create a HK Bridge similar to the “by Room” suggestion above and create multiple HK Bridges by “Device type” while still keeping the Bridge library in the HK “System” Room you created in your video?
One of the difficulties I have is understanding how to add or remove individual devices and attributes to HK after the HASS Bridges are set-up in HK.
Maybe that’s where HomeKit Devices in HA comes in?
As your connected/smart home environment grows you may well start to bump into limitations. Having multiple bridges allows you to work around the 150 device per bridge limit.
The reason why I moved from bridge by “Device Type” to by Room is it reduced the work required to move the device to the correct room after. When I had all bridges in a single room all devices I included would first be placed in that room… then I would need to manually move them to the correct rooms.
FYI the Home Assistant naming of HomeKit integrations is pretty hideous. Simplified… use HomeKit Bridges for exposing Home Assistant stuff to HomeKit and HomeKit Devices to pull in HomeKit stuff into Home Assistant.
Thank you for sharing your thought process. Part of my issue is that my devices have been repurposed as my Smart Home grows and I add additional devices, so I am concerned about the designation of HA Bridges by Room strategy. I know my idea of organizing by Device will involve greater setup time to start, but I also want the greatest flexibility to move devices from room to room as my ecosystem grows.
@@jpileggi1
Your reasoning makes complete sense to me… I have shifted the work to ensuring each device I add to HA is put in a Area… all in all it sounds like a perfect opportunity for some enterprising person to build an automation to sync anything designated to be in a HA area with a given HomeKit Bridge…
Agreed, that would be fabulous if they could implement a Sync function. When you consider that 18.7% of people use the HomeKit Bridge I'm surprised that the HA guys have not through of this, or have they !! ;)
I’d like to see the HomeKit Device integration as well!
Hi Many thanks for this video it explains a great deal
Can I ask my best route for my situation- I am an apple Home user with Aqara Meross and Eve devices all working extremely well
I purchased Home Assistant Green and Sky connect purely to allow me add some non supported devices to HomeKit . I only want to use Home assistant for this purpose and not to replace my Apple home . So if I expose the bridge only will I keep my Apple home intact and then just add additional devices one at a time via Home assistant without breaking my Apple home
Thanks in advance
Yes. :)
Adding extra devices to HA and then using the Bridge to "send" then back into HomeKit would work. Just be careful through, as soon as you plug in HA, it will "discover" all those Home Kit devices that are on your network. Then you need to make a decision if you ignore them or bring them into HA also. You are going to get into the situation where you need to decide which is the "master" and which is the "slave" system.
First of all, I would like to thank you for the excellent video! But now I have a problem... I have a temperature and humidity sensor that I would like to expose to HomeKit. I followed all the procedures shown in the video and everything went well and the sensors show the correct data, but after a few seconds they all become "no response" and if I remove them and include again, they start to work but only for a few more seconds.
Could you help me? Thank you very much
Hi, that sounds like a nightmare to resolve. I personally have never seen this issue myself but I did some hunting around on the internet and found this problem can be related to network connectivity or mDNS (multicast DNS) issues:
1) Ensure your router's IGMP settings are configured correctly.
2) Check if your 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks are separated.
3) Verify that mDNS is working properly on your network. Some routers may have issues with mDNS, which is crucial for HomeKit communication.
Other possible resolutions:
Check your network connectivity from Home Assistant:
- Use the Terminal add-on to ping your router and external DNS
targets.
- Verify that Home Assistant can see your gateway and nameserver.
- When configuring the HomeKit integration, try including only the specific entities you want to expose, rather than entire domains.
- Check the Home Assistant logs for any error messages related to the HomeKit integration or the specific sensors you're trying to expose.
- Ensure your iOS devices and HomeKit hubs (Apple TV, HomePod, etc.) are updated to the latest software versions.
Good luck and let us know how you go.
@@smart_home_australia Hello, thanks for the tips and sorry for the delay in responding.
I was running several tests and I believe that it could be a problem related to mDNS, because when I try to ping my server through the homeassistant.local address, it only works for a few seconds after the server is restarted, just like my HomeKit devices. However, I couldn't find a solution for this (the only way I can access my server is directly through the local IP (192.168...) or through my external URL that I configured using Duckdns). I don't believe it's a problem with my router, because I have other servers on my local network, such as a TrueNas Scale, and I can ping them perfectly at any time using my-server-name.local.
My homeassistant is hosted on a virtual machine inside my TrueNas Scale server, but both have different IPs from each other. I believe that this shouldn't be the problem, but I'm already out of ideas on how to solve this.
Sounds like you have tried everything that I would have tried. You are now into CCNA territory and black magical arts. Sorry I cant be of any more help. Does anyone else have an ideas to try?
Thanks for another amazing video!
What do you do when HomeKit bridge recognise the device(which is a light switch) as a Switch, and not a light?
Just add it as a switch and reconfigure it inside the Home app into Light?
Also, Say the Switch added is actually a gate but recognised as a Switch.
How to redo it into a gate/window/garage door? The only options Home app lets you choose is Fan/Light/Switch.
Thank you and I hope you make more of these videos!
Thanks Dr Z :)
Depends which side it wrongly classifies it.
One Apple Home, select the device, press the cog in the bottom right, change "display as" to fan, light, or power point.
On the HA side, SETTINGS>DEVICES and SERVICES> HOME BRIDGE> DEVICES> Select DEVICE> Select main control>COG>Display as> select appropriately.
Regards changing the icon to something outside of what is offered, currently I don't think that you can, yet :)
Check out the following for more details Ref: www.makeuseof.com/how-to-change-device-icons-apple-home-app/
Hi Paul, can you show that how can we integrate homebridge devices to Home Assistant. Thank you
It does seem to be a hot topic... I'll add it to the recording schedule and see if I can get out shortly. Thanks for your feedback.
Is there a way to find out which bridge in Home Assistant correlates to one in Home Bridge? I added a few (before I saw your video) and did not update the names. I have bridges in HomeKit Bridge that are not being used and I want to remove them, but the bridge names in HomeKit don’t match the names in HomeKit Bridge.
Kind of :)
To identify which Home Assistant bridge corresponds to a specific bridge in HomeKit, I'd suggest the follow steps:
1) Check bridge details in HomeKit:
- Open the Home app on your iOS device
- Tap on the bridge you want to identify
- Scroll down to find the "Bridge" section
- Look for any identifying information like the name or serial number
2) Compare with Home Assistant:
- In Home Assistant, go to Settings > Devices & Services
- Find the HomeKit Bridge integrations
- Click on each bridge to view its details
- Look for matching information like the name or device identifiers
3) Use process of elimination:
- Disable one bridge at a time in Home Assistant
- Check which devices become unresponsive in HomeKit
I'm sure you have tried a lot of these already, but there is no definitive way that I'm aware of.
I’m just getting started, and I’m moving from a HomeKit-only setup to Home Assistant + HomeKit setup. I’ve already done what’s in your video so my HA devices can be passed along to HomeKit, but I’m told by several sources I need to add my HomeKit Devices to Home Assistant first, then let the bridge bring them back over to HomeKit. The problem is when I try to add a new HomeKid device I don’t have the option to add something new, I only get a dropdown showing me the HomeKit devices already on my network.
HomeKit Bridge integration allows you to make your Home Assistant entities available in Apple HomeKit. Whereas, The HomeKit Device integration allows you to connect accessories with the “Works with HomeKit” logo to Home Assistant, once they have been paired within HomeKit. I believe this was a change from before, but was not using this integration previously.
As an example, I have a love hate relationship, with Lifx globes, great globes, terrible pairing implementation, where if you want to manually pair, you need to put them into pairing mode for 15 minutes BEFORE they will show up outside of an HomeKit pairing mode. I battled with Lifx support for months until I had an epiphany. I just paired them with HomeKit, and they automatically showed up in Home Assistant through the HomeKit Device integration. Now they work perfectly.
Looks like I might need to make a video about this as I have received a few questions about it. But basically by implementing both integrations you get all devices in both ecosystems (unless you restrict the devices or domains).
Sorry I think I’m misunderstanding as well still. So in an ideal situation if the lifx globes could have more easily paired with home assistant you would do that first, and then include in the bridge?
@@AlexGower Yes, as a general rule you should always pair direct with HA. In most cases this gives you local control, quicker response and detaches you from the manufacturers web services (just in case they go bust or stop support). The use HomeKit Bridge integration to pass control back to Apple HomeKit.
Apple Device Integration is the converse of this, in that I added to Apple HomeKit and then HA discovered them and allowed control within HA. Going this way means that I do not have direct control of the lights and instead are passing the command to Apple HomeKit to action for me.
Make sense???
Very nice video. Your voice and style to explain things is awesome.
Thanks a lot 😊
Maybe my question is dumb, but is it possible to scan the HomeKit QR with 2 different devices (iphones)? once i scan it with my phone i cannot find it again to scan it with another one. Thanks a lot for your tutorials, keep going!
Nope thats a unique one use code, but remember that once paired you can share simply within HomeKit so shouldnt be an issue.
I think it requires a HomePod. Thanks tho.
I wasn't aware of that, thanks for the info.
I didn't catch why it's advantageous to create one bridge per domain. Mind sharing your thoughts here?
It’s a hit topic. I like the one bridge per domain for maintenance and issue identification. Others like one domain per room. I can see merit in both. I guess it’s just personal preference.
Thanks for great video. Would it be possible to integrate existing CBUS lights / smart switches (currently controlled by Wiser 2) into Home Assistant / HomeKit?
Sorry I have no experience with CBUS, but doing a little reading it sounds like yes. But with some additional hardware.
forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/30x185k1
Hi! Thanks for sharing your knowledge! I’m new to smart home and am preparing to setup the HomeKit + HA combi. If I’m using HA to link up devices to HomeKit, do I need a HA Green?
You are most welcome. Technically you need a HA installation that will run HACS , so you must have a HA OS or Supervised installs (ref: www.home-assistant.io/installation/). HA Green is a great little device and perfect for new users, but in my opinion is not the best medium to long term option, check out my video about HA Green (ref: www.home-assistant.io/installation/) and then to finally make your decision watch the video for HA on a VM (ref: ruclips.net/video/VBXfvT9EiYo/видео.html). and I believe you will have your ultimate answer.
@@smart_home_australia thank you for taking the time to respond and explain! Really appreciate it! I’ll start with Green and slowly work my way around. If you have the time, can you consider making videos on how to add major players - google/xiaomi/smartthings onto HA please? I read a lot on the community but I haven’t really seen a video that provides step by step guide on how to do it like this video. Thank you!
Thanks :)
Regards adding "the major players" yep, can do. Trouble will is that I'm an Alexa household and don't have Smartthings (anymore).
Xiamoi on the other hand is Zigbee so is really straight forward, your choice is if you want to use ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT. ZHA is the built in protocol and super easy. SETTING > DEVICES and SERVICE > Add Integration > Add Zigbee device. For Z2MQTT, watch ruclips.net/video/sfsZF0R0HtE/видео.html, and that shows you all you need.
Good luck and let me know if you need anything else.
@@smart_home_australia thank you!!!
You are most welcome. Enjoy your smart home journey.
I keep getting the "Accessory not found" message after scanning the QR code from HomeAssistant generated by the Apple HomeKit integration. I'm running HA in docker and iPhone with iOS 17.5. No ATV or HomePod as a hub. Any support?
There are afew reasons that I can think of:
1) Network issues - Make sure that the HomeKit server is listening on the IP address that your iOS clients are on.
2) mDNS issues - HomeKit protocol relies on mDNS (Multicast DNS) for discovery. If mDNS isn’t working correctly on your network, your iOS device won’t be able to find the HomeKit accessory. You can check the mDNS announcements using an mDNS browser.
3) HomeKit Accessory already paired - HomeKit accessories can only be paired with one controller at a time. If the accessory is already paired with another device (like your iPhone), you’ll need to remove it from that device before you can pair it with Home Assistant.
4) Network Optimization Settings - If you are using a UniFi network and have the network optimization settings on, then this can cause issues.
@@smart_home_australia I have the same issue. I’m running HA in a virtual machine and the bridge that I’ve set up can’t be found by the iphone. Btw there are some instructions at the home assistant site regarding docker issues with this.
Same here. Tried like 15 different things over past few hours and it just keeps timing out. No issues with any other hub or wifi hk device in my home so far, including Homebridge, and I can clearly see HASS bridge shows up in mDNS browser, so this definitely feels like a bug in HA or their HomeKit Bridge as I see a ton of people in the forums have the same issue and most don't end up solving it.
How do I get them certified so Siri will work, this is the whole reason I wanted to add all these different accessories to the HomeKit because I wanted to use Siri instead of Google. Thank you.
Hi, if you mean the certification warning when you add the devices? Then you don't need to get them certified. Add anyway and use Siri to control the device based on the name in Apple Home kit. Should work perfectly, although with limited functionality sometimes.
Bummer it’s not easy to add devices already in HK into HA.
THats the thing, its not hard, if they are compliant and certified and already added to HK then its simply SETTINGS> DEVICES and SERVICES > ADD INTEGRATION > APPLE > HOMEKIT DEVICE and select the device, submit, done. The issue arises when the device is not listed.
@@smart_home_australia okay cool, this is easy! my bad haha - re pairing is awesome.
It is, all the way till that one device you have in HK just refused to show up in HA. But that's another video ;)
I wonder if you could offer some advice. I have a Fingerbot switch, I use this to allow me to open my entry door. I originally set this up to work with home kit (YAML). However to invoke it I have say via Siri "Turn on Entrance" is it possible to change this to "Open Entrance" instead. Thank you for any help you may give & Best wishes.
Search for "Change Device Type of a Switch", depending on how the entity is set up you may be able to change the entity directly to the type you want so it has "Open" instead of "On", or you can use the Helper Integration to manually configure this.
Yep. Siri short cuts are your best friend and can solve this for you. Check out support.apple.com/en-au/HT209055
@@smart_home_australia Thank you.
@@TyPaff Thank you.
Thanks TyPaff, that's a good way of changing the behaviour of an entity within Home Assistant.
@Foggy3657, Go to SETTINGS > DEVICE and SERVICES > ENTITIES. Search for and select your entity. Press the COG in the top right, change the SHOW AS field as you would like the entity to be represented, ie. Switch, Outlet, Cover, Fan, Light, Lock, SIren or valve (which they spell with a lowercase "v" for some reason :)).
I have a few devices in home assistant that aren't appearing in homekit but the rest are. Is there something I can check to help re sync those up? Specifically I am not seeing my nest cameras in homekit despite them working in home assistant.
I found this article that talks through how to do it, but I have not tried it. Pls note this article is 2 years old.
cln.io/blog/homeassistant-relink-homekit-bridge-to-homekit-again/
I think there are a lot of Apple users. Thanks for the video
I think you are right. With the recent improvements in the Apple integrations things are looking very good. I'm planning on a follow-up video for the Apple Devices integration as there still seems to be some confusion about the two.
pfff, tried Innr sp120 import in Homeassistant yes With! power and voltage, added to Homedash > yes but Only switch no powermeasurement! tried Nous the same, even tried Zwave Fibaro 2 f types In Homeassistant power measurement, but in Homedash only switch. How can i measure in Homekit?
Yep, its not perfect, it does have limitation currently but they are working on it. I'm a big Apple user and know the benefits and limitation that a closed eco system provides. Lets hope the team can figure out how to get all entities bridged.
I think it's ok to order your channel even I live in Finland 🤣
What a beautiful country, welcome onboard.
Keeps saying Accessory Not Found :(
Is this for integrating HA to HK and NOT HK to HA.
@ HA into HK. Honestly, not sure what I did but all of a sudden it saw it as a bridge and viola! Thank you for replying!
The jobs of integrations. I'm amazed that so many of them a tally work straight out of the box. I mean these are usually between two companies or entities that have not mutual alliance and yet 99.9% of integrations "just work". Geez i sound like an Apple advert lol
thanks, finaly I can tell siri to set movie scene from my apple tv remote
It was a revolution getting all my cameras into Apple TV, finally PiP and all cameras live on screen and in one place !!
Nice video.
From experience… I would suggest a couple of changes.. Create a bridge per room in HomeKit. Put the bridge in the correct room and not in any “SYSTEM” room. Once you establish the bridge in the room any subsequent changes to entities included will automatically be added to the correct room in HomeKit.
Thankfully the old days of loosing connection and having to repair the bridge seem to be over but you will thank yourself if it happens and you don’t need to worry about putting the entities back in the correct room and not have everything show up in SYSTEM.
Now I like that I idea. What a great suggestion. I’ll try it out and see how I go. Thanks 🙏