As you will remember, A few days ago we were talking about the Nanoleaf bulbs.. I was telling you that my Nanoleaf Essential model bought two or three years ago, at least, were compatible with Thread but had never been updated to Matter.
Some of you have told me that it is indeed so, that Nanoleaf released a first version Thread and Bluetooth (in case you don’t have a border router Thread) but that it never gets updated to Matter. A little while ago, they took an update of those same light bulbs that also connect to Thread but are also compatible with Matter, leaving the model I have forgotten. By the way, they are EXACTALY the same, on the outside they only differ in the logo of the box, which in mine says that they are Thread and compatible with Apple Homekit and in the new ones that they are Thread and compatible with Matter. The bulb is also exactly the same, but the QR code that comes serigraf
The new ones are a Matter code and not HomeKit. The new Matter-compatible model can be found on Amazon at €19.
The thing is, these days I’ve been doing tests and There are some important differences between connecting the bulb directly to HomeKit with the Apple House app or connecting it to Home Assistant so I can move it from here to the Home app.
First: match the bulb from the home app or from the Nanoleaf app
If we do the first thing, I mean, Match the bulb with the Apple House app or through the Nanoleaf app, directly search for a Thread border router and detect the modern HomePod or Apple TV we have on our network, which, in case we have them, directly activate the Thread support And it connects to the Thread network of HomeKit devices. You know, the Thread network that makes up the HomePod and Apple TVs, in my case a network with 6 devices in high availability.
Once paired, the bulb responds really fast and smoothly due to Thread connectivity.
Peeeero, If we do not have a border router Thread, the bulb is connected by Bluetooth, which makes it react much slower and sometimes we get the little ball going around when we open the Home app until you realize whether the device is available or not. One roll, we already know the historical problems of the bluetooth devices in HomeKit and their slowness.
If we match it like this, it works great but it doesn’t show up in Home Assistant, since it’s not Matter… so it stays’ captive ‘in the House app.
If we try to match it with Home Assistant directly to move it from here to the Home app using the HomeKit Bridge plugin, there’s no way you can connect directly to Thread. It will always be connected using Bluetooth… and yes, then we can post it on the House app, but it responds slowly because it’s connected by Bluetooth.
After a lot of hitting me, I found a way to connect it to Thread in Home Assistant and from there to publish it to the Home App… and it’s a pretty bizarre form.
Tie it to Home Assistant through Thread
Once we put the bulb in matching mode that, for those who don’t know, Nanoleaf devices reset by removing the current for 3 seconds, giving it power for less than 2 seconds, removing it for 3 seconds, giving it for less than 2 seconds… and so 5 times, so the last time we give it the light bulb is put in red and blink to indicate that it is in mode pairing. The point is that at that time, we have to add it to the House app or to the Nanoleaf app. I recommend doing it to Nanoleaf’s app because from there we see the Thread networks we have, in my case the one generated by the App devices.
with a lot of devices and the one generated by the Sky Connect from Home Assistant. The Casa app does not give us any information about the connection protocol, it is quite information-based.
https: / / youtube.com / short / wulGDpw7XtE [/ embed]
The point is, So, the bulb will join Apple’s Thread network. All right, it’s a robust network formed by a lot of devices. From here we can’t tell you to join the Sky Connect’s Thread network… but sure we want to do that? It’s a network with one border router while in the other I have a lot! If one of those Home Assistant reboot, it gets damaged or something happens to the Sky Connect, it would lose connectivity. You know that the Thread devices create a mesh or table network and between themselves they are given coverage, but you always need a border router on the network.
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Still, we could turn off the HomePod and the Apple TV and the bulb would join the Home app using the Sky Connect as the border router Thread.
Well… Once we have the bulb paired with the house app in one way or another, we will already have it connected by Thread and working beautifully… but we want it to reach Home Assistant, for which we will have to ELIMINAR the bulb in the House app without RESETEARLA and within a few seconds we will discover it Home Assistant And we’ll see that it’s connected using Thread. I hear it because if we restart it or put it in pairing mode again to link it to Home Assistant once it is removed from the Home app, it will not join using Thread but will connect with Bluetooth. To connect using Thread we have to remove it from the Home app and do not restart
or anything until Home Assistant detects her.
It’s like the light bulb has the Thread network on it. And, by removing it from the House app, try again to look for it and that’s when the Home Assistant detects it, but if we try to add it directly from Home Assistant to the Bluetooth protocol, surely for a bug in the implementation of Thread in Home Assistant.
Obviously, from Home Assistant we can already post it in the Home app using the usual HomeKit Bridge As if any other bulb were involved and we’d have it in both apps.
If you ask yourself which network I’ve matched these devices with, I’ll tell you that I’ve left it on Apple’s menad network, which forms the HomePod and the Apple TV. In the end it is a network of a lot of devices that offers me more confidence than the Sky Connect. This does not mean that you never want to use the Sky Connect as border router threat and connect all devices with that network, but a priori while maintaining the HomePod and the Apple TV is not possible because you cannot tell these devices that they are connected to an existing Thread network like the one generated by the SkyConnect, but that the Apple devices are going to create their own T-network
hread. It’s funny to see this. from the Nanoleaf app because it tells me that I have 3 Thread networks, first the one created by the Nanoleaf devices that is identified with a stupid name white _ truth _ 95, after that of the Sky Connect that is identified as Home-Assistant and the third that of the Apple devices that is identified as MyHome and a random number where you see all the Apple devices that make you border router.
This doesn’t mean it’s not worth the Sky Connect, does it? Please note that it is a Multiprotocol, so we can use it to connect to Home Assistant Zigbee and Thread devices. It’s ideal for someone who’s riding the home network at home and has no HomePod or Apple TV, but as we said the other day, in the end Home Assistant is a unique failure point without high availability and in case the SkyConnect socket is damaged or there is a problem with the physical device where we have the Home Assistant installation, we will run out of network until we replace it… while if we have all the devices in the
app Home and under pure HomeKit, all HomePod at home would have to be ruined to run out of network… as long as there are no services that depend on the Internet, of course, as with Home Assistant this can be limited much more and make all the intercommunication between the devices and the home power plant local, while with HomeKit we cannot always do so.
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