< HomeKat Help

HomeKit Settings and Assignment Recovery

The Settings > HomeKit page links to the HomeKit home used by Home Kat Bridge and helps preserve the organisation of accessories supplied by the bridge.

Allow Home access when requested. Home Kat Bridge uses it to select a home, inspect its own accessories, and retain room, scene and automation assignments. If you have more than one home, choose the one containing the Home Kat Bridge accessory.

Pairing status

The Home Kat Bridge section reports whether the main bridge is paired. When it is not paired, use the QR code or setup code on the Home page to add it from Apple's Home app.

Unpair from HomeKit removes the main bridge and every configured Harmony television accessory from the selected home. Their accessories disappear from HomeKit, but Home Kat Bridge retains supported room and action assignments for a later re-pair. The app first asks HomeKit to remove each matching bridge accessory; if it cannot find a unique match or HomeKit returns an error, it clears that HAP server's pairings directly. The interface and category status are refreshed when unpairing finishes. Unpairing is not needed for an ordinary restart or temporary connection problem.

After adding the main bridge again, wait for its accessories to reappear. Pair each required Harmony television again using the code on its Harmony page. Restoration starts only after HomeKit has created the relevant accessories; it cannot apply assignments while a bridge or television is absent.

Rooms, scenes and automations

Home Kat Bridge saves the preferred room for each configured accessory. It also saves supported writable characteristic actions that refer to those accessories in HomeKit scenes and automations.

This information is used when:

• the main bridge is unpaired and paired again;
• an accessory category is disabled and later enabled; or
• a configured accessory temporarily disappears and later returns.

The HomeKit page lists rooms and accessories, scenes, and automations visible to the app. Scene rows show the scene name, the principal state set for an accessory, and a disclosure for any additional characteristic changes. A device's detailed configuration page also lists the scenes and automations that reference it.

Restore saved assignments

Restoration normally runs automatically as accessories return. If assignments still need to be applied, select Restore Room & Scene Assignments under Pairing Status. On a Mac, the same command is available from the HomeKit application menu. HomeKit can sometimes reject or ignore room assignments, so this can sometimes require manual fixes. If Homekit refuses oto change an accessories room, unpair the bridge and add it again can sometimes clear the problem.

The command can:

• move recognised accessories to their saved rooms;
• add saved characteristic actions back to an existing scene;
• recreate a missing scene and restore its saved actions; and
• add saved actions back to an automation action set that HomeKit still makes available.

Home Kat Bridge cannot recreate an automation trigger or its conditions. The automation must still exist and expose its action set before its accessory actions can be restored. Actions are restored only when the matching accessory, service and writable characteristic can be identified.

Forget saved scene assignments

Use Forget Saved Scene Assignments when scene membership was changed intentionally and the old scene actions must not be reinstated. This removes saved scene actions only. Preferred rooms and saved automation actions are retained.

The same command is available from the HomeKit application menu on a Mac. It does not remove or modify current scenes in Apple's Home app; it only clears Home Kat Bridge's saved scene-recovery information.

If restoration is incomplete

Confirm that:

1. the correct home is selected;
2. the main bridge is paired and its accessories are visible;
3. the relevant category is enabled and running; and
4. the scene or automation still exists in Apple's Home app.

Then run Restore Room & Scene Assignments again. HomeKit may expose different controls for different accessory models, and an action cannot be restored if its former characteristic is no longer available or writable.