I’ve paired 2 aqara mini switches (2018). They are not exposed to homekit via homekitty. I’ve contacted Homekitty and they confirmed that this device can’t be exposed to homekit because it lacks any usable capability in the homey device list. It only shows alarm_battery and measure_battery. Can this be fixed? I used to work with homebridge and these switches worked perfectly fine in homekit.
Why didn’t you ask @robertklep who would be able to solve this problem?
I did some research. All my batterie powered button devices (e.g. Aqara Mini Switch 2018, Aqara Opple 6, Philips Dimmer Switch Gen. 2, Fibaro KeyFob, IKEA Symfonisk 2,…) have only the capabilities alarm_battery
and/or measure_battery
. So I suspect that this is a requirement from Athom. So Athom is the only one who can solve this problem, but they most likely won’t do so.
What do you want to achieve? What is your goal or use case. Maybe there is a workaround.
He did
I was the one saying that with only the two capabilities mentioned, HomeKitty cannot do anything with these devices (I also don’t understand how they can work as a switch without at least something like an onoff
or button
capability).
First I checked your HomeKitty topic and didn’t find a post from Henk. Then I checked GitHub and realized that he didn’t asked you who could solve the problem: the app developer of the Aqara app or Athom.
That’s what I meant with my question.
I don’t understand how it works either. But I’m not a programmer.
I’m not sure either
No offence intended, but I’m not sure I understand the problem. So you can’t use the miniswitch in homekit, but why would you want to?
I have the miniswitch paired to homey and use the single-, double- and triple click and long press. This works like a charme.
All my home automations are managed by Homey. So I don’t need a copy of the switch in ‘homekit’
I only use ‘homekit’ so I can use ‘Siri’ to trigger Homey actions.
Some people use Homey as an HomeKit translator (i did).
I found the WAF (Wife Approval Factor) is way higher with HomeKit then with Homey.
I’ve got several native homekit relays and lights that I want to switch on and off. So I need These switches to be exposed to homekit. My setup is more homekit centered. My main objective for Homey is to connect devices that are not homekit compatible. I guess it’s the other way around of what you are doing.
does anyone know how I can reach out to the developer of Aqara? So far I only found this forum.
The forum is the official way.
Contact options can be found in the App Store:
In the case of the Aqara App, all options lead to the Homey Community Forum:
[APP] Aqara & Xiaomi Smart Home - Simplify your life with a smarter home
That’s how I ended up in this forum. Let’s hope the developers of the aqara app are reading some of the posts here to.
How devices are exposed to HomeKit / HomeyKittey is not defined by the apps; it is based on a translation of (custom) Homey device capabilities to HomeKit capabilities.
The button pressed trigger of the Aqara mini switch is a custom capability that does not have a HomeKit translation, but can be used within Homey’s flows to trigger actions.
Although I even think there is no matching HomeKit capability (I am no HomeKit expert though).
The developer
Can you explain what exactly you want to do with this switch from HomeKit? Perhaps there are alternative ways of achieving what you’re looking for.
In the past I used Homebridge to expose aqara devices to homekit. The mini switch showed in homekit with te ‘pressed once / pressed twice / pressed long properties’ and worked perfectly fine.
I’ve tested the mini switch with Honey flows and that work indeed, but is not useful for me.
My scenario:
- Pres once → switch Nanoleave light on-off
- pres twice → switch Meros light on–off
- pres long → set Nanleave light to bright white
To my humble opinion I’m stuck with homebrige for some of my Zigbee devices. To me that is far from perfect. Having 2 Zigbee networks in one home is a disaster waiting to happen. The lack of routers of the smaller Zigbee network is just one of the things that I’m worried about.
Do you mean that you were using automations in Home to make this happen? If the button was pressed once, the Nanoleaf light was toggled, if the button was pressed twice, the Meross light was toggled, etc.
Somewhere you would have needed to define which action to take when the button was pressed.
Why not?
I’m trying to understand what you’re trying to replicate.
(For next time(s)):
Hope… hope…
The whole point of Dirk’s mini howto was: these apps have their own topic, he even linked to it for your convenience :
In most cases the developer gets notified by new posts in his/her app topic automagically.
The automation in Homekit looks like this:
if (miniSwitch.pressedOnce) {
if (nanoleadLight.On) {
set nanoleafLigt.off;
else {
set nanoleafLight.on;
}
}
}
if (miniSwitch.pressedTwice) {
if (merossLight.On) {
set merossLigt.off;
else {
set merossLight.on;
}
}
}
if (miniSwitch.pressedLong) {
set nanoleafLigt.brightness = ‘100%’;
set nanoleafLigt.color = ‘red’;
}
I can’t use the Homey flows because the NanoLeaf- and Meross lights are not exposed to Homey. They only connect to Apple’s Homekit.
Maybe this workaround is a no-go for you.
Create a virtual device in homey “Nano-leaf on”
Copy the device through ‘homekitty’ to HomeKit
Make a flow in homey
WHEN ‘Single press miniswitch’
THEN change “Nano-leaf on”
In HomeKit:
WHEN “Nanoleaf on“ is turned on
THEN turn ‘nanoleaf’ on
WHEN “Nanoleaf on“ is turned off
THEN turn ‘nanoleaf’ off
I already had a virtual device ‘maks’
So I created this flow in homey:
One click on ‘maks’ changes in both homey and HomeKit
I created these automations in HomeKit:
It works.
@Wim_Post This certainly looks like a usable workaround. I’ll give this a try.
Thanks a lot.