In researching my own issue, I’ve seen several different topics and posts regarding similar devices.
Problem: I could not for the life of me connect my Govee Ambient TV light strip to home assistant via matter. I could with the Govee add on and I could with the Govee-to-MQTT add on.
I would hold power while pressing middle button 4 times to reset things, then try again. I would get the same unable to connect to device error.
somewhere in the process of adding and removing the lights to the Govee app I realized that there was a step I may have been neglecting.
Here is an out line of the steps I used to successfully connect my Govee lights to Home Assistant via Matter.
- remove the light from your govee app
- hold down power button while pressing middle button 4 times.
- there will be a short “light show” but now your lights will be in paring mode.
- I went into the Govee settings for that light and under the Matter section, I copied the QR code to a secondary device so I could use my primary device to scan the QR code.
- add the device to your Govee app and complete the WiFi connection settings. It is worth noting here you must have IPv6 enabled on your router and your home assistant, mobile device, and govee device must be able to obtain an IPv6 address.
- once your device is registered and showing up as connected via WiFi and not just bluetooth, we are ready for the next step.
- Compete these steps from your mobile device using the home assistant companion app.
- go to Settings → Devices and Services
- click on “Add Integration”
- click on Matter (this is assuming you have the matter server already installed. Please install it if you have not done so already
- Click “no its new”.
- you should be brought to a screen where you are prompter to scan a QR code or enter a code. Scan the QR code you copied in step 4.
- When you are at the “Get Ready for Set Up” screen THIS IS THE KEY STEP!!! before you press next, do a quick short press of the power button on the govee device. In my case it appeared to have turned the device off, but the red indicator light remained on.
- Hit next.
- Instead of device not found, I was greeted with a device added message.
It seems that while holding power and pressing middle button 4 times does in fact reset the device and put it into a “discovery mode” you must push the power button again one more quick time just before actually pairing it with Home Assistant in order to enter it into “pairing mode” and let it successfully connect. Otherwise, you will scan the QR or enter the matter code, it will search, it will generate matter credentials, it will check connectivity with WiFi and it will fail.
TLDR
-make sure IPv6 is enabled on your network.
-connect your lights to wifi via the govee app
-do a reset on them (hold power, press middle button 4 times, prepare for light show)
-prepare to pair them from the home assistant companion app in the add integration → matter device section.
-press power button once more.
-initiate integration process.
-device is added via matter
I hope this helps other people out there, I know I spent a few days researching and testing different ways to get this to work. My goal is to avoid using APIs for all my devices. I deleted any Govee integrations after setting this up and was still allowed full control of my Govee device.
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