Step 3: Import the profiles

In this step you give Homebridge the profile zips from Step 2, restart the plugin, and then delete the zips from your computer. The plugin’s settings page is the easiest way. If you can copy files straight onto your Homebridge machine, there is also an import folder.

Import on the settings page

Use the computer that has the zips from Step 2, with the folder from Step 2 still open.

1. Open the Homebridge UI, as in Step 1.
2. In the side menu, click Plugins.
3. On the Home Connect Local card, click the three dots, then click Plugin Config. The plugin’s settings page opens. At the top it says “Import profiles”.
4. Drag the zips from your folder onto the box that says “Drop profile zips here, or click to choose them.” You can also click the box and choose the zips.

Your browser sends each zip to Homebridge and nowhere else. Homebridge saves the keys in its own storage folder, never in its settings file, config.json.

For each zip, a message appears that starts with “Imported” and names the zip. If a zip fails, the message starts with “Could not import” and says why.

Under “Imported appliances” there is now one row for each appliance:

• Appliance shows the brand, the type, and the model code in brackets. Below that are the appliance ID and the connection type, TLS or AES. The appliance ID is also called the haId. It is the name Home Connect gives one appliance.
• On the network shows an address such as 192.0.2.50 if the settings page just found the appliance on your home network. It shows “not seen” if it did not. The search uses mDNS, the way devices on a home network announce themselves so that others can find them.
• Plugin status says “never connected”. That changes after the restart below.

If an appliance says “not seen”, carry on anyway. If it still does not work after Step 4, see Appliance not found.

Restart the plugin

Nothing appears in Apple Home until the plugin restarts with the profiles in place. Under the import box, the settings page now reminds you: “Restart the plugin (or its child bridge) to apply.”

1. At the bottom of the settings page, click Close.
2. On the Home Connect Local card, click the three dots, then click Restart Child Bridge.

Delete the zips

Each zip holds an appliance’s key. Homebridge now keeps its own copy, so you no longer need the zips. Anyone who finds a copy could control your appliances from your home network.

1. In the folder from Step 2, delete every zip.
2. Empty your Trash or Recycle Bin.
3. If you also saved a zip anywhere else, such as your browser’s Downloads folder, delete it there too.

Another way: the import folder

Use this way if you can copy files straight onto the machine that runs Homebridge, for example through a NAS file share. Skip it if you already used the settings page.

1. Find Homebridge’s storage folder. It is the folder that holds Homebridge’s config.json.
2. Inside it, open the folder homeconnect-local, then the folder import inside that. The plugin created both the first time it started.
3. Copy your zips into import.
4. Restart the plugin’s child bridge, as described in Restart the plugin.

The plugin imports the zips as it starts, and adds the appliances on that same restart.

• A zip that imports is deleted, because it holds a key. The log says imported <appliance ID> from <zip name>, which has been deleted because it holds a key.
• A zip that fails is renamed so that its name ends in .zip.rejected, and the log says why. Most often the line reads <zip name> rejected: followed by the reason. The plugin does not try a rejected zip again.

A .rejected file still holds a key. Once you have read the reason in the log, delete the file. Then delete the zips from your computer, as in Delete the zips.

How you know it worked

• The settings page lists every appliance under “Imported appliances”. To open it, click the three dots on the Home Connect Local card, then click Plugin Config.
• After the restart, Plugin status for each appliance says CONNECTED. These appliances save power by ignoring connections for a few minutes at a time. If it says DISCONNECTED, wait a few minutes, then open the settings page again.
• No zip is left on your computer, and no .rejected file is left in the import folder.

Next: Step 4: Add to Apple Home.