I just setup my Homey Pro and my first device I’m attempting to connect is the Yale Smart Lock for Matter. The device is advertised for Google, but states it should work with any matter hub. After some fiddling I was able to get the device to pair with Homey, but I have no real functionality.
Homey shows the device’s battery level and a log of when I manually locked and unlocked the door. When I try to push a command to lock or unlock the door, after a couple of seconds I receive an error- Matter Error: im_status_code_faiulure (0x0501). Once I get the ability to lock and unlock the Yale, I’ll need to figure out how to program access codes…
My Homey Pro is connected via Ethernet. I was able to update my Homey, and installed the Yale Access app, so it clearly has internet access. When I go through the Homey Support portal and select my Homey Pro, and then Device, it says that it couldn’t establish a connection to my Homey.
Edit: I should also mention, the Yale Access app on Homey says I have no devices.
I believe that extra functionality is supposed to be handled by the Yale Access Homey app, at least that was my understanding, but the device doesn’t show in the App, only as a device on Homey.
Ok, if the Homey can’t do that, then do I need to join the door to something else and bridge it into Homey somehow? That feels like a really basic function of a smart lock to be missing.
You have to make a choice on how to connect the device to Homey. Caveat: since I don’t know the device, and there are so many different Yale apps for Homey I don’t know each of their purpose, features, etc, so this may not be fully correct.
Use Matter: local access, but very limited in terms of features (basically “open door”, “lock door”, “unlock door”). This isn’t a shortcoming of Matter (which supports access codes/PIN’s), but of Homey. Matter is fully handled by Homey itself, it’s not possible to write apps that implement additional Matter functionality beyond what Homey already provides.
Use one of the Yale apps, which may possibly use cloud access (so not local). Apps can implement device-specific features, like managing access codes, but they don’t necessarily have to. In other words, you should see if there’s a dedicated app for your lock, then see if it connects to the lock in an acceptable way, then see if it actually supports all the features you require.
An in-between solution would be to connect the lock to Homey for the bare minimum of features, then if possible use the official (non-Homey) app from the manufacturer to manage the lock.
The particular lock is Blutooth and Matter only. I was able to at least get some functionality by joining it via Blutooth to the Yale App on my phone, but in order to join it back to Matter, it takes pushing a full factory reset, there’s no in between state unfortunately.
Perhaps I can try joining the Lock to a Google Home Hub and link Homey to my Google Home. Google Home should be able to set the pins, and then I could still get alerts and Lock/Unlock from homey for the centralized platform… I imagine that might result in a slow response time though. I’m also wondering if that would resolve the issue where the door won’t even lock/unlock…
I guess the other option would either to be to switch to a WiFi lock, or switch to Home Assistant
After a bit of fighting with Google Home (the app decided my hub was no longer a matter router) I eventually managed to get the lock joined to Google Home. I have full functionality through Google Home (set pins, lock/unlock/etc.)
I was also able to use the pair code in Google Home to join the lock into my Homey Pro, but once again the device had no functionality. I tried deleting the device from Homey once again and joining it via the Yale App installed on my Homey rather than just as a matter device, and that appeared to fail entirely, it just hung on the attempting to connect page for several minutes before I canceled, only to find the device was listed as an available device again. Still, I am getting an error when sending the lock and unlock commands to my lock.
After a few attempts, some enlightenment as to the cause of the lock errors… After trying commands from Homey a few times, Google alerted me my lock was disabled due to too many bad PINs… It would seem that Google isn’t simply issuing a Lock/Unlock command, but providing the PIN I registered to my user account in Google Home.
With this in mind… is this lock simply unusable in Homey, or is there some way to tell Homey to attach a PIN when issuing lock/unlock commands? Perhaps an update to the Yale app on Homey could facilitate such?
That will not change until Homey’s Matter implementation is updated.
But I was hoping that by adding it to Google Home, and then to Homey, you could at least manage the lock (through Google Home) and still have some basic functionality for it in Homey.
Homey doesn’t support PIN’s with Matter. At all. And there’s nothing that the Yale app can do to change that.
But I was hoping that by adding it to Google Home, and then to Homey, you could at least manage the lock (through Google Home) and still have some basic functionality for it in Homey.
I guess… is there some way to have Homey tell Google Home to unlock/lock the door as a proxy? I’ll go digging…
English
Create a virtual switch in Homey, and select Kettle at “what’s plugged in”;
In Google Home, create a routine for the household (not under personal). You will then be able to select the virtual Kettle device in the available triggers listing. See images:
