Matter multi-admin failing - Homey Pro Mini + Apple Home + Eve Thread devices (Matter)

Questions & Help
1

I have a Homey Pro Mini and a solid Apple Home Thread network (2× Apple TVs as Thread Border Routers, multiple Eve Energy plugs and Eve Motion Blinds). All devices work perfectly in Apple Home and form a stable Thread mesh.

I’m trying to add these Eve devices to Homey via Matter, either by:

  • Adding them to Apple Home first and then attempting multi-admin, or

  • Factory resetting and adding them again

In all cases, Homey goes through the Matter commissioning flow but fails at the final step (“unable to connect” / commissioning fails at the end). This happens consistently across multiple Eve Thread devices (plugs and blinds).

Key points:

  • Homey Pro Mini does have a Thread radio

  • Thread mesh quality is good (devices are responsive in Apple Home)

  • Devices are definitely Matter-enabled

  • Distance / signal doesn’t appear to be the issue

  • There is no generic HomeKit controller/bridge in Homey, so Matter is the only integration path for Eve

Has anyone:

  • Successfully added Apple-owned Eve Thread devices to Homey via Matter multi-admin?

  • Found a reliable commissioning order or workaround?

  • Identified Apple Home / Eve firmware limitations that block Homey specifically?

At this point I’m trying to understand whether this is:

  • An Apple Home multi-admin limitation

  • An Eve firmware issue

  • A Homey Matter/Thread implementation gap

  • Or simply not supported in practice yeT

Any real-world success stories or confirmed “this doesn’t work” answers would be very helpful

2

Hi Matthew,

I’ve 2 AppleTV as Thread border routers too and 14 Eve Energy to extend and build a stable thread network. After that I set every Eve Energy in pairing mode using the apple home app. Now I can add it to Homey using the iOS connection mode:

New Device → Matter → iOS mode → enter pairing pin → wait some time and it should connect to homey and added as new device

You should take care to use the latest Homey OS 12.10.1. On version lower than 12.8 I’d issues with connecting Matter-over-thread devices, but Homey is working on Matter too. At the developer page you can see all connected Matter devices.

Greetings,
David

3

I have the latest Homey version and just tried to reconnect my Eve home plugs using the process you described, which is just what I was trying to do before, I got the same error message and couldn’t connect. It goes all the way through the pairing process but fails at the end saying ‘try again later’. Any suggestions or pointers would be very much appreciated.

4

I’m sorry - I’ve not idea how you can fix this. I’d problems with Eve components too. But after creating a stable thread network, it’s fine for now. Maybe this helps you:

  • AppleTV → you can switch the master thread border controller from AppleTV 1 to 2. This can help, if the AppleTVs are to far away from each other. I would recommend to put some Eve energy between both to extend the mesh network.
  • Base Network → if you are using Unify with IPv6, you have to configure mandatory settings to work in a Unify network environment (don’t remember which ones, but you can find it with Google - e.g. MDNS)
5

Title: Thread / Matter stability in complex IoT VLAN + multi‑admin setup (what helped, what still breaks)

Hi all,

I wanted to share my experience getting a large Thread/Matter setup mostly stable with Homey Pro (Early 2023), in case it helps others – and also to hear if anyone sees the same remaining edge cases, especially with Aqara U200.

Setup

  • Controller: Homey Pro (Early 2023), LAN‑only (Ethernet, Wi‑Fi not used), static IP

  • Network:

    • ASUS mesh (BT‑10) in Pro mode

    • Dedicated IoT VLAN (VLAN53) with its own IoT SSID

    • All IoT hubs on VLAN53:

      • IKEA Dirigera (Ethernet, static IP)

      • Aqara Hub M100 #1 + #2 (Ethernet, static IP)

      • 4× Google Nest Hub v2 (IoT SSID, act as Thread BR)

      • Homey Pro (Ethernet, static IP)

  • Devices (Thread/Matter examples):

    • IKEA: TIMMERFLOTTE, MYGGSPRAY, ALPSTUGA (Thread/Matter)

    • Aqara: 2× U200 Smart Lock Lite, G410 Video Doorbell (Matter)

Original problem

After restarting Homey (or sometimes after Wi‑Fi/mesh changes):

  • Several Thread devices showed up in Homey’s Matter/Thread nodes view without an IPv6 address .

  • In Homey they were “offline”, but:

    • Still online and working in IKEA Dirigera (for IKEA devices)

    • Still online and working in Aqara (for U200/G410)

  • Power‑cycling the devices (esp. IKEA) usually made them immediately get IPv6 in Homey and start working again, without re‑pairing.

It looked very much like:

Thread mesh and vendor hubs were fine,
but Homey’s Thread/Matter stack didn’t fully re‑establish routing to some nodes after a Homey restart.

Network changes that helped a lot

These changes made a big difference:

  1. Homey: LAN only

    • Disabled Wi‑Fi for Homey, only Ethernet, static IP.

    • Removed dual‑IP/dual‑interface confusion.

  2. All hubs in the same IoT VLAN

    • Homey, Dirigera, M100s, Nest Hubs all in VLAN53.

    • Phone must also be on the same IoT SSID/VLAN when commissioning Matter devices, or Thread networks are not found.

  3. Disabled IGMP Snooping and Airtime Fairness on Wi‑Fi

    • On 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz (including the IoT SSID):

      • IGMP Snooping: OFF

      • Airtime Fairness: OFF

    • This stopped “smart” multicast handling from interfering with mDNS/IPv6 multicast that Matter/Thread relies on.

After this:

  • Most Thread devices now come back by themselves after a Homey reboot.

  • IKEA devices (TIMMERFLOTTE, MYGGSPRAY, ALPSTUGA) and one U200 eventually get IPv6 in Homey again without any power‑cycle.

  • Thread logs show:

    • Good RSSI/LQI,

    • Single, clean parents for SED devices,

    • ALPSTUGA acting as a stable router with many neighbors,

    • No sign of a broken mesh.

What still isn’t perfect

Even with this improved setup, I still see:

  • Right after a Homey reboot, 1–3 Thread devices sometimes show up without IPv6 in Homey’s nodes view (but are online in their native hubs).

  • Over the next minutes, most of them eventually get IPv6 in Homey on their own and start working.

  • The one real “edge‑case” is one Aqara U200 :

    • It works fine in Aqara.

    • Homey sees it as a Thread node but often never gets IPv6 after restart.

    • Power‑cycling the lock rarely helps.

    • It looks like Homey’s Matter/multi‑admin state for this specific lock is “sticky”, while Aqara can still recover it.

The other U200, with similar network conditions, behaves much better and is fine in both Homey and Aqara.

Thread diagnostics (short summary)

For the devices that now behave well:

  • TIMMERFLOTTE, MYGGSPRAY:

    • MTD | SED, stable single parent, direct route, good RSSI/LQI.

  • ALPSTUGA:

    • FTD | Router, many neighbors, no disconnect history – clearly a healthy router in the mesh.

  • U200 #2:

    • MTD | SED, single parent, good link, works in both Aqara and Homey.

This makes me confident that:

  • Thread itself is healthy ,

  • and the remaining issues are mainly Homey’s Thread/Matter discovery and multi‑admin handling after restarts , especially with Aqara U200.

Questions for others

  • Anyone else running:

    • Homey Pro 2023

    • multiple Thread BRs (Nest, vendor hubs, maybe Homey)

    • IoT VLAN / separate SSID

    • and multi‑admin with IKEA + Aqara + Google

  • …who sees similar behavior:

    • Thread nodes occasionally show up without IPv6 in Homey after reboot,

    • but are fine in their native hubs,

    • and either:

      • fix themselves after a few minutes, or

      • need a power‑cycle,

      • especially Aqara U200?

And if you’ve found extra tweaks (or know newer Homey firmware that improves this), I’d love to hear it.

Hopefully the stuff that did help (LAN‑only Homey, IoT VLAN, IGMP Snooping OFF, Airtime Fairness OFF, commissioning with phone on IoT VLAN) can save someone else a lot of trial and error.