I’m trying to start using Thread devices in Home Assistant for the first time. I’ve gotten a Sonoff Dongle Plus MG24, flashed it with OpenThread firmware, added it as an OpenThread Border Router in Home Assistant, and added the Matter integration.
However, when I try to commission a Matter/Thread device using the Home Assistant companion app on my GrapheneOS phone, I scan the QR code, get to the screen that says “power on your device and make sure it’s in setup mode,” and “connect your phone to your main 2.4GHz network” and tap the “I’m ready” button, but then it gives me an error that I have “no Wi-Fi connection” even though it is definitely connected to the correct (2.4Ghz, not 5GHz) network.
I’ve also checked that the Home Assistant app has all the necessary permissions (network, nearby sensors, etc.)
Help?
Edit: I just found these bug report threads that look like they’re relevant, but I’m still reading through them:
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I litteraly had exactly the same issue last week.
It seems like the subsystem for adding matter devices on Android is part of Play services and not supported in Graphene.
I read around a bit and there are supposed to be ways of adding your phone or a laptop as bluetooth proxies and use them to pair the devices. If that works for you, great! I mearly wasted a few hours trying to get any of that to work and then gave up. What did work for me instead was going to the store, buying a 10€ bluetooth dongle and plugging that into homeassistant.
Whatever route you go, once you HA-instance has access to bluetooth (and you have anabled the bluetooth integration), go to the matter server app and in the configuration toggle “Enable BLE proxy” on.
Then restart the server and you can add your devices in the Matter Server by clicking on comission node -> new thread device and entering the key (including hyphens, found that out the hard way :|…). It does take a bit longer then adding zigbee devices but works and has been stable so far.
I ran into this issue getting a couple matter devices working because I moved to e/OS ungoogled Android phone. Had to use my old iPhone with Home Assistant app to add them.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any (working) phones running stock Android. Any other ideas?
Unless you’re sucking the google cock, you’re pretty much out of luck. It’s so weird that HA is relying so much on that shit. I have the same issue on GOS and I ended up giving up and tossing the matter devices.
Only options I’ve ran into is either an Android device with Google Play Services, tablet or phone, or an Apple device, either tablet or phone.
Haven’t tried using an Android emulator on a laptop. Not sure if that’d work.
You can use the border router UI to provision the devices with the ID on the device if your server has a bluetooth adapter. I did it this way can’t give you more details as I’m currently not home
Commissioning Matter devices using Graphene may not work due to the commissioning flow requiring Google Play Services.
I had that problem. If your Home Assistant instance itself has Bluetooth, you can use the manual flow to work around it:
In HA:
Settings -> Connectivity -> Matter -> Options -> Add Manually
There you can type the 11 digit code from your matter device (exactly as it appears, including hyphens) and it will add it without needing a phone.
As mentioned though, your HA instance needs Bluetooth for this. My HA is in a virtual machine so plugging a dongle was less than ideal. I solved it instead using a esp32 Bluetooth proxy over Ethernet.
https://esphome.io/components/bluetooth_proxy/
You may(?) also need to set up Matter to use that bluetooth device. There’s some reading on it here which could be useful
https://smarthomescene.com/guides/add-matter-devices-home-assistant-without-phone/
Good luck! :)
I’m glad I set it up, because being ‘forced’ to use a google/apple phone for setting up matter on my local network feels like a really stinky pattern. I’m glad I don’t need to :)
Interesting that you can use BT for this. I have a spare googled phone for stuff that doesn’t work on graphene that I don’t feel like troubleshooting for more than a few hours that I used to add an aqara deadbolt.
Honestly, after all the troubleshooting with matter (I didn’t have ipv6 prior and didn’t really see a need internally for it) I wish I had gone with a different deadbolt as it was the first matter device and currently still only one.
The normal consumer smartphone pairing flow uses Bluetooth on the phone to do the initial device pairing after you scan the QR code.
You just aren’t made aware of that as the user.
The on-server flow also needs Bluetooth therefore, and all that’s different is you manually type the numbers from the QR instead of using the camera to scan :)
To set up matter for using bluetooth one just needs to go into the matter-server apps settings and turn on “Enable BLE proxy”.
Besides what the name suggests, that also works for local bluetooth dongles.
When I did it, this also involved switching to the beta version because the functionality to use a Bluetooth proxy was kinda new. But I guess we’re past that now, hooray~
is IPV6 enabled on the network? you need v6 for all that
Yes, IPv6 is enabled, but based on the bug report threads I linked I don’t think it’s the problem anyway.
Hey I had this issue, play store is needed to provision with qr codes but you can go to the matter app/add on and provision with bluetooth. Your HA will need BT like a pi or access to bt somehow. Your device needs to be in bluetooth range to HA to be picked up, not thread range to a border device and you need the 11 digit code.
If you dont have the code thereare sites that can extracr ot from the QR.
I am out nowbut if still an issue I can walk you through it tomorrow
Add the device from a desktop browser. Use a bluetooth dongle on your home assistant device. Make sure the matter add-on is the only thing using that Bluetooth device.
Someome else asked a similar question a well or two ago about adding matter devices in the fdroid version of the app and this is the conclusion we game to.
https://lemmy.world/post/51058794
Edit: OP even mentions they got it working with Bluetooth proxies and that it was easy.
Good luck! Sincerely.
I just made the decision, when I needed two more Zigbee Trådfri bulbs, and realised they are no longer available, that I buy a batch of used ones someone else is changing to matter or another system. I now have 6 spares along with spare buttons, which should last me a good while. I am postponing the switch to matter. Because currently my system just works.
But we need someone trailblazing. Hope it works out for you.
At the very end of the second linked issue, you’ll find a potential solution. It is IMO even better than the commissioning going through your phone, as it could enable mass device adoptions (you set up HA, throw around a few EspHome BT proxies, then reset all hardwired Matter devices like bulbs and switches and such, supply the pairing codes + device identifiers in a simple text file, and bam, everything pairs automagically as HA takes care of the commissioning process), as well as automatic device re-pairing (Matter devices are usually good on this front but some do require a reset and re-commission to work properly - with HA knowing the ID and pairing code, it can continuously watch for known devices becoming available to pair and do the auto commissioning again).
