Hide accessories that are not responding

[M0untainD3w]

Hi there. My washing machine is showing as "not responding" when it is turned off. Is there any way for the plugin to show it as OFF? Or have it hidden from Apple home at all when it is turned off?

Thanks!

[thoukydides]

The issue arises because when certain appliance types are switched off (particularly Dryer, Washer, and WasherDryer), they also disable their Home Connect functionality without signalling that they have been turned off. From the perspective of the Home Connect API, this is indistinguishable from the appliance losing its Wi-Fi connection or experiencing any other communication problem: in all such cases the API simply reports the appliance as DISCONNECTED.

Accordingly, the correct mapping to HomeKit is to report HAPStatus.SERVICE_COMMUNICATION_FAILURE, which is what this plugin has done since version v0.40.1. As you have observed, this causes the Apple Home app to display No Response for the appliance, which is an accurate reflection of the underlying state.

Earlier versions of the plugin reported the appliance as Off, but that was misleading: DISCONNECTED can equally indicate that the appliance is powered on but temporarily unable to reach the Home Connect servers.

In principle it would be possible to add or remove the accessory dynamically based on whether it is CONNECTED. However, that approach would discard any user configuration in HomeKit (room assignment, custom name, favourites, scenes, automations, etc), and would likely prove confusing, while still failing to resolve the underlying ambiguity about why the appliance is offline.

This topic has been discussed previously, for example in #251, where I explained in detail why the current behaviour is intentional and will not be changed.