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Home Assistant Add-on: OpenThread Border Router

Installation

Follow these steps to get the add-on installed on your system:

  1. Navigate in your Home Assistant frontend to Settings -> Add-ons, Backup & Supervisor -> Add-on Store.
  2. Click on the top right menu and "Repository"
  3. Add "https://github.com/home-assistant/addons" to add the "Home Assistant Add-on Repository for Development" repository.
  4. Find the "OpenThread Border Router" add-on and click it.
  5. Click on the "INSTALL" button.

How to use

You will need a 802.15.4 capable radio supported by OpenThread. Home Assistant Yellow as well as Home Assistant SkyConnect/Connect ZBT-1 are both capable to run OpenThread. This add-on automatically installs the necessary firmware on these systems.

If you are using Home Assistant Yellow, choose /dev/ttyAMA1 as device.

Alternative radios

The website openthread.io maintains a list of supported platforms lists other Thread capable radios. A well documented Radio for development is the Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 Dongle. The Dongle needs a recent version of the OpenThread RCP firmware. This article outlines the steps to install the RCP firmware for the nRF52840 Dongle.

Once the firmware is loaded follow the following steps:

  1. Select the correct device in the add-on configuration tab and press Save.
  2. Start the add-on.

OpenThread Border Router

This add-on makes your Home Assistant installation an OpenThread Border Router (OTBR). The border router can be used to comission Matter devices which connect through Thread. Home Assistant Core will automatically detect this add-on and create a new integration named "Open Thread Border Router". With Home Assistant Core 2023.3 and newer the OTBR will get configured automatically. The Thread integration allows to inspect the network configuration.

Web interface (advanced)

There is also a web interface provided by the OTBR. However, the web interface has caveats (e.g. forming a network does not generate an off-mesh routable IPv6 prefix which causes changing IPv6 addressing on first add-on restart). It is still possible to enable the web interface for debugging purpose. Make sure to expose both the Web UI port and REST API port (the latter needs to be on port 8081) on the host interface. To do so, click on "Show disabled ports" and enter a port (e.g. 8080) in the OpenThread Web UI and 8081 in the OpenThread REST API port field).

Configuration

Add-on configuration:

Configuration Description
device (mandatory) Serial port where the OpenThread RCP Radio is attached
baudrate Serial port baudrate (depends on firmware)
flow_control If hardware flow control should be enabled (depends on firmware)
autoflash_firmware Automatically install/update firmware (Home Assistant SkyConnect/Yellow)
otbr_log_level Set the log level of the OpenThread BorderRouter Agent
firewall Enable OpenThread Border Router firewall to block unnecessary traffic
nat64 Enable NAT64 to allow Thread devices accessing IPv4 addresses
network_device IP address and port to connect to a network-based RCP (1)

(1) Note you still need to set a dummy device, e.g., /dev/ttyS3. Also, note that the RCP protocol is not designed to be transferred over an IP network: It is a timing-sensitive protocol. You might experience Thread issues if your network link has excessive latencies. As Thread is networking capable, running a Thread border router on the system the RCP radio is plugged in is recommended.

Support

Got questions?

You have several options to get them answered:

In case you've found a bug, please open an issue on our GitHub.