Apple/Amazon/Google Thread OTBR

[josh_s]

I would like to create a thread based sensor and use Apple/Amazon/Google smarthome hubs as the OTBR. How do I commission a thread device (not a matter device) to these hubs?

[Vidar Berg]

Hello,

I asked one of our Matter developers about this and received this response:

The problem to solve is how to extract the Thread Credentials out of the hubs.

I can see two ways, one proper and one more hacky one.

1) Proper way would be to use Android API or iOS API to fetch the Thread Credentials out of the Phone. The Hub uses the Thread Credentials which are also stored on the Phone.

developers.home.google.com/thread
developer.apple.com/.../threadnetwork

2) More hacky way.. would be to build for example the Matter Template sample with -DCONFIG_OPENTHREAD_SHELL=y enabled. Commission the device to Apple or to Google (for Google you need additionally to regster VID/PID in the Google Console). After the device is commissioned you can pull the thread credentials by: ot dataset active -x

The Thread Credentials (dataset) could be later used by your Thread sensor device (using otDataset API).

So, it looks like it should be possible to have you sensor join the thread network if you can get access to the thread credentials.

Best regards,

Vidar

[josh_s]

Thank you.

Regarding approach 1 above)

Do I need to use the IOS API to retrieve credentials from the homepod mini, and then the Android API to retrieve credentials from the google device, or are they interchangeable? Would they each work with an amazon device?

• If they are interchangeable, is there a command line tool I can use instead to pull credentials from any thread network device on my home wifi network?  

[Vidar Berg]

According to the links below, the credentials should be accessible on the phone, regardless of the Matter hub in use. But this needs to be verified.

https://developers.home.google.com/thread#credentials_ownership_and_maintenance 

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/threadnetwork/managing-thread-network-credentials