Xiaomi Launches Official Home Assistant Integration for Apple HomeKit Control of Mi Home Devices

Mi Home's smart device lineup is known for its rich product range and reasonable pricing. As a result, many users considering smart home products often opt for Mi Home devices. These devices are then integrated into Home Assistant through unofficial means, ultimately allowing for control via Apple's Home app.

Previously, Xiaomi had not released an official Home Assistant integration, meaning users had to rely on integrations provided by other developers. After years of waiting, Xiaomi has finally decided to release an official integration.

Yesterday, Xiaomi open-sourced the Home Assistant Mi Home integration on GitHub. It uses Xiaomi's official APIs for login and password authentication. Once the Mi Home integration is installed, it supports most Mi IoT devices, although some Bluetooth, infrared, and virtual devices are not supported.

The Mi Home integration allows for local control via a Xiaomi central gateway or a built-in central gateway. Without a Xiaomi central gateway or another device with central gateway functions, all control commands are sent directly through Xiaomi Cloud.

It's important to note that the firmware for Xiaomi central gateways supporting Home Assistant local control has not yet been released. This means that, currently, deployments are actually controlled via Xiaomi Cloud, not locally.

A few reminders:

• Xiaomi central gateways are only available in the Chinese mainland market and cannot be used in other regions.
• Xiaomi's LAN control feature is not subject to regional restrictions and can be used globally.
• If a central gateway exists within the same LAN as Home Assistant, the Xiaomi LAN control feature enabled by the Mi Home integration will not be effective.

The cloud service interface used by the Mi Home integration has been deployed in six data centers across Mainland China, Europe, India, Russia, Singapore, and the United States. Due to the separation of user data across different Xiaomi Cloud regions, users must specify their region during setup to import the corresponding Mi Home devices. However, the Mi Home integration supports adding Mi Home devices from different regions to the same Home Assistant area.

Project address: https://github.com/XiaoMi/ha_xiaomi_home/blob/main/doc/README_zh.md