Apple
Apple TV 4K (Wi-Fi + Ethernet, 128GB)
- Wi-Fi
- Thread
- Matter
- Bluetooth
Verified September 2026
Not Home Assistant hardware at all — but if you already own one for Apple TV duties, the Wi-Fi + Ethernet 128GB model doubles as a genuinely solid Thread border router that Home Assistant's built-in Thread/Matter support can share a mesh with, via Matter's multi-admin fabric support. Only the 128GB Wi-Fi+Ethernet SKU works well this way; the 64GB Wi-Fi-only model isn't a reliable Thread border router. Buy a SkyConnect-class dongle if this is the only reason you're shopping — this only makes sense as a bonus for existing Apple TV owners.
In Home Assistant
| Control | Type | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Border router entry | Diagnostic (Thread panel) | Appears as a discovered border router with device name and online status, but exposes no Apple TV device entity or controllable state. |
| Network credentials known | Status | Indicates whether HA has successfully imported this border router's Thread dataset; until credentials are known, HA can see the network exists but can't route through it. |
| Preferred network | Selection | Flags which visible Thread network is currently marked preferred for provisioning new Matter devices — the setting most prone to silently reverting to Apple's network. |
| Route count | Diagnostic | Shows how many Thread devices are currently routing through this border router's partition, useful for spotting devices that have drifted onto the Apple TV's network instead of HA's own. |
Credential sharing isn't automatic dataset sync — HA has to pull Apple's Thread dataset via the iOS Companion App's debug menu, which imports whatever network iCloud Keychain currently holds, including stale entries from a previous house or Apple ID if one was ever active on that phone. Because HA's preferred-network selection still isn't fully implemented, any Matter device commissioned via the Home or HA companion app on an iPhone gets whatever Thread network that phone currently prefers — so a device can silently join Apple's mesh instead of a ZBT-2/SkyConnect-rooted one even when a Home Assistant-first setup was intended. The two remain separate Thread partitions under multi-admin Matter, not one merged network, so if the keychain transfer grabs the wrong dataset the fix is pulling the live dataset straight off HA's own Thread add-on and setting that explicitly as HA's preferred network rather than re-trusting the companion-app import.
Specs
- note
- Requires the 128GB Wi-Fi+Ethernet SKU specifically, not the 64GB Wi-Fi-only variant
- model
- 3rd generation (2022), Wi-Fi + Ethernet, 128GB — model MN893B/A
- thread support
- Border router, Ethernet variant only