CODEWITHSUNDEEP
wifialexa-skills-kitgoogle-home
user21776820
user21776820

Reputation:

How does pairing a smart home device actually work?

To pair for example a WiFi light switch to Alexa, it requires a smartphone, First you have to put the switch in pairing mode then you "discover" the switch on the phone and you're done. That means the smartphone app or Alexa actually sent the WiFi password to the switch for it to connect. How did that happen? Which protocol is that? And most importantly, how did the app send a messages to the switch before it was connected to WiFi? It had no address yet to be sent to.

See the process i described here.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 405

Answers (1)

Tarlog
Tarlog

Reputation: 10154

I'm not going to watch your video, but I can tell you that this process is vendor specific.

For Matter devices, the Matter protocol is used, and Alexa mobile app sends Wifi credentials over BLE, if it's a fist commissioner. If it's the second commissioner, device is already connected to WiFi.

For skill-based devices, it's pure vendor implementation. Kasa by TP-Link for example use SoftAP. In this case it's Kasa app that sends the wifi credentials using the WiFi connection that device creates (SoftAP) and Alexa won't know those.

For Alexa Connect Kit (skill-less) devices. The Frustration free setup is used. It's similar to Matter: Alexa mobile app sends the WiFI credentials over BLE.

To clarify: Matter is the only standard protocol here. All other ways are not standard.

Upvotes: 0

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