back

by WaitWaitWha·9mo ago·view on hn ↗
I can only speak to my experience, certified devices by the largest firms will mostly not interoperate (fails around authN).

Apple: Keeps Thread credentials locked to HomeKit's border routers.

Google: Shares some credentials, but only within Google Account environment.

Amazon: TBD, but their Matter implementation is mostly cloud-tied.

Samsung: Hybrid approach; still best when used inside SmartThings, their 1.4 update seems to support for joining existing Thread networks. Still have to test it.

So, even though Thread theoretically allows full interoperability, no vendor wants to be reduced to a dumb router in someone else’s ecosystem.

there is no easy way to bridge Apple Thread to Home Assistant or Google Thread, even though it is theoretically supposed to be possible from a protocol standpoint.

If you have such solutions, let me know, because I would take full advantage of it, and will regale your contributions in multiple home automation threads.

2 comments
I have every thread device I own in both Apple Home and Google Home and it seems to be just working fine? I even remember adding some devices to google and some to apple and then sharing between them. I have border routers from both tho, maybe that's why it works?
> Apple: Keeps Thread credentials locked to HomeKit's border routers.

The Home Assistant iOS app can extract the Thread credentials from Apple’s border routers and send them to Home Assistant. The documentation for what happens thereafter is not amazing.