Just published v4.4.1-beta firmware for Bond Bridge Pro. This adds ability to link a Group to a Sidekick channel or key, and a Scene to a key.
It also adds several stability fixes for HomeKit. You should now get no errors and state feedback with up to 50 shades. Other device types not supported.
AS USUAL: I strongly recommend doing a back up in the app before the upgrade.
Video demos / guides here:
We are working on support for this (and Scenes in general) in the app. It’s harder there because the app needs to manage a distributed system. But it is coming. For now you have this web interface if you are willing to put on some CSS-colored glasses
KNOWN ISSUE: May require rescue reset if using HomeKit + TRO.Y integration on a large system. Fix in the works.
Holding the little reset button while powering on until light ring goes red. Not recommended unless device is unrecoverable by regular resets (just holding reset during normal operation).
Are you a dealer, end user, or both? I’d be interested to learn about your use case and experience, as this is a recent integration.
You should be fine with the beta. I’ve only seen the issue requiring rescue reset with HK + TROY + another unreleased local integration running all at once.
I have Screen Innovations Tro.y and a Helen Zigbee. I have integrated into the Tro.y a Lutron as well as Bond Bridge Pro. My sole purpose in all this was to integrate my Zigbee and RTS shades to Apple HomeKit. Unfortunately the HomeKit Integration with Bond Bridge Pro seems to not be a strong point depending on the Bond firmware. Anyways - in summary, I have about a dozen Zigbee shades connected to Tro.y as well as about 20 Zigbee plugs and switches connected to the Tro.y via the Helen. I then use Bond Bridge Pro to connect the shades directly to HomeKit. For the other non-shade Zigbee devices (plugs and switches) I use Hubitat with the community Bond integration. Hubitat then integrates with Apple HomeKit to get the remainder of my Zigbee devices integrated into HomeKit.
My only issue really has been that once I integrate HomeKit with Bond Bridge it periodically errors out and stops working until I reset or wait half a day for it to correct itself. I’m told BondBridge techs are working on a fix via firmware updates but it’s been 2 months and no word yet ….
Hey David, We just tried here with 29 shades via the TRO.Y integration + HomeKit on beta and it seems to work well, so I think you should give it a try. We have corresponded w/ SI support on this topic, but sorry if you dropped off the chain somehow.
Hi David, we’ve deployed a v4.4.3-beta which should fix the issue where the bond crashes occasionally when using TRO.Y + HomeKit.
Note that this issue was distinct from the issue where we were worried about rescue reset.
Let us know how it goes.
Also: Thanks for reporting that the state in the app doesn’t update when you use the TRO.Y Lutron integration. We have not yet implemented state feedback in the TRO.Y integration, because Bond was usually the only control point, but we can do so in another beta soon.
I downloaded 4.4.3 and all was good but I then installed 4.4.4 which completely crashed by Bond Bridge. The Bond would go offline and reset itself every 30-60 seconds. Tried different wires and no luck. Finally removed the HomeKit integration and it stopped doing that. Now I had to revert to the Stable firmware which doesn’t crash the Bond but also doesn’t have the fixes for HomeKit. If there is a way to put back 4.4.3 that would be great!
Hey, David, we did try sending the v4.4.3 upgrade to your unit but it’s not taking for some reason. We are not sure what is going on with the FW upgrade process on your unit. Checking here with the FW team.
Hmm. Yes there are a few ways it can be loaded from a local server. The easiest way is to keep your Bond Home app in beta channel, do a wifi reset aka “green reset” on the Bridge, and then use the app to reconnect to wifi. The app should attempt to upgrade to the v4.4.4-beta version.
But as you stated, this seemed to not work for you, and you want to go back to the v4.4.3-beta. We don’t have a straight forward way to deliver the file locally, but we could try adding something in the “bond-cli” Python utility we have. If you’re comfortable with command line that is something we can try.
Lastly, it is possible to reflash the Bond Bridge Pro via command line and USB cable. This is kind of tricky and requires a Mac or Linux computer, a USB data cable, and some patience.
Today we have two engineers trying to reproduce the issue you have with v4.4.4 and then also the FW update issue.
To be clear - I am able to upgrade to the 4.4.4 but once I do that then there are issues. If someone wants to connect into my system to observe that let me know.
