Siri requests target heating cooling state of auto even when its not a valid value

[RefineryX]

The problem

I have a Tado Thermostat in HomeKit via the HA HomeKit Controller. When turning the thermostat on or changing the temperature via Siri, I get two errors within the HA logs.... however the temperature still changes as expected.

The thermostat only supports heating (off, heat) and there is no cooling element.

I am unsure if it is related, though I did report a simular issue this time last year #44076

These particular errors showed when asking Siri to turn the temperature to 22 degrees. (The current temp was 21 and the thermostat was in the 'off' state).

Error 1

('10.10.1.12', 49379): Error while setting characteristic TargetHeatingCoolingState to 3

Logger: pyhap.accessory_driver
Source: /usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pyhap/accessory_driver.py:76 
First occurred: 11:31:14 (1 occurrences) 
Last logged: 11:31:14

('10.10.1.12', 49379): Error while setting characteristic TargetHeatingCoolingState to 3
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pyhap/accessory_driver.py", line 74, in _wrap_char_setter
    char.client_update_value(value, client_addr)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pyhap/characteristic.py", line 282, in client_update_value
    value = self.to_valid_value(value)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pyhap/characteristic.py", line 194, in to_valid_value
    raise ValueError(error_msg)
ValueError: TargetHeatingCoolingState: value=3 is an invalid value.

Error 2

TargetHeatingCoolingState: value=3 is an invalid value.

Logger: pyhap.characteristic
Source: /usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pyhap/characteristic.py:193
First occurred: 11:31:14 (1 occurrences) 
Last logged: 11:31:14

TargetHeatingCoolingState: value=3 is an invalid value.

What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue?

Core

What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core?

No response

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant Container

Integration causing the issue

HomeKit Controller

Link to integration documentation on our website

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/homekit_controller/

Example YAML snippet

No response

Anything in the logs that might be useful for us?

No response

Additional information

No response

[probot-home-assistant]

homekit_controller documentation
homekit_controller source
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[probot-home-assistant]

Hey there @Jc2k, @bdraco, mind taking a look at this issue as it has been labeled with an integration (homekit_controller) you are listed as a code owner for? Thanks!
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[Jc2k]

The exception is in pyhap, which is part of the homekit bridge, not homekit_controller.

The question is whether Siri is generating unexpected data that the bridge doesn't like, or whether it's homekit_controller.

Do you only get these errors with Siri and not when you use the HA Ui? What about the Apple Home app?

[Jc2k]

Does the Ha UI correctly see the valid modes? (It dossnt show auto or cooling?)

Does the Apple Home app show the correct modes?

[Jc2k]

Looking at the other issue I'm going to pre-emptively move this issue as it looks like it's homekit, not homekit_controller.

[probot-home-assistant]

homekit documentation
homekit source
_{^{(message by IssueLinks)}}

[RefineryX]

Do you only get these errors with Siri and not when you use the HA Ui? What about the Apple Home app?

So I have ran a couple more tests. The conditions of the tests were starting with the thermostat in the 'off' state, the current temp is 21 degrees (c) and requesting the temp to change to 22 degrees (c).

• When asking via Siri, "hey Siri, turn the temp to 22 degrees) the errors appear on the logs as above.
• However, requesting (manually turning on and setting the temp to 22 degrees) via the Apple HomeKit app, the error does not appear on the logs and the functionality works as expected.

I would assume this is isolated to Siri.

Does the Ha UI correctly see the valid modes? (It dossnt show auto or cooling?)

The HA UI sees the correct valid mode and does not show auto or cooling.

I also checked in the Customise Entities section, and see

Hvac modes (JSON formatted)
["off","heat"]

Does the Apple Home app show the correct modes?

HomeKit also sees the correct modes

[bdraco]

Siri is asking for Auto even though its not a valid value

HC_HEAT_COOL_AUTO = 3

We had another user experience this siri issue a while back. I'll see if I can find how it was solved

[bdraco]

Related PR #44236

[bdraco]

😆 Looks like I'm actually remembering your previous issue #44076

[bdraco]

pyhap since added validation to prevent invalid values from leaking into the HomeKit state machine

[bdraco]

I don't see a way to fix this without removing the validation from pyhap and letting the invalid data into the state machine. I'm not sure we want to do that though as it will re-introduce other bugs

[Jc2k]

With hkc, we bend over backwards to cope with the same bugs in devices that iOS copes with (like the hideous JSON trailing comma that we dealt with a while back). I think this is the same situation. iOS/Siri is doing something dumb, but it is "always right" so we have to deal with it?

I.e. we should tolerate crap coming in, but follow the spec for stuff we are sending out.

We could clamp all ints to minValue/maxValue. This makes sense for things like temperature (if you request -5 C, we'll get you as close as possible but it might only be 10 C). And it happens to work here, maxValue is 1 or HEAT. My gut feeling is that this sort of clamping might be how this has gone unnoticed?

[Jc2k]

(To be clear: pyhap clamps to minValue/maxValue for stuff coming from iOS to HA, but still validates for stuff coming from HA to iOS)

[bdraco]

I created a workaround for this issue in #60220

We will have to wait for a new release of HAP-python with this PR: ikalchev/HAP-python#392