Leverage a more consistent credential management approach

[mkerstner]

Goals

Aim for a more coherent approach for credential management across protocols and devices.

Vision

We aim for a more coherent credential management across supported protocols and devices, by

• thinking about a stable (technical) foundation
• first focusing on door locks and alarm panels
• thinking about how / where to leverage user interaction (e.g. per device vs. per user)
• aim for potentially incorporating Aliro as an emerging standard for secure mobile access

Scope & Boundaries

In Scope:

• Door locks
• Alarm panels

Out of Scope:

• Any other device types for now

Plan

Epic 1: Evaluate a stable (technical) foundation (Priority: High)

• Before going into protocol specifics we aim to align on a stable technical foundation that suits our range of protocols
• That should also gives us confidence in ideally implementing one reference protocol as a start
• And define base concept where to attached credentials to, e.g. device vs. HA user

Epic 2: Evaluate Aliro for secure mobile access to become first Open Source platform to support it (Priority: High)

• Aliro as an official standard is shaping up and aiming for an official launch in 2026
• As many manufacturers and test labs use Home Assistant to power their setup having Aliro support is not only beneficial for our end-users
• We could be the first Open Source platform to support it thus enabling our community to profit from it

Epic 3: Z-Wave door lock code management (Priority: High)

• New Z-Wave locks are emerging that also include fingerprint, user code scheduling, etc, like Ultraloq
• Opportunity to add missing code management & enable broader compliance also with WWHA devices and thus improve coherence
• While Z-Wave specs have been developed to align very well with Matter, etc. it still looks like a big project
• Also, to note is that Z-Wave is not yet supported by Aliro

Epic 4: Expand alarm panels (Priority: Medium)

• We aim to evaluate adding missing support for multiple codes, for multiple users & scheduling
• While it's currently possible to achieve that through a manual / hacky way we should aim to natively support it

Related Feature Requests

No response

Additional Context

• Jan 2026: Based on past discussions and incoming PRs specifically targeting Matter-locks only support we are currently aligning the next potential steps to take
• As usual, we are aiming for an iterative approach.
• Further alignment and discussions on how / best to incorporate Matter Lock Manager Backend home-assistant/core#159619 is ongoing
• Thoughts and notes on this topic are shared here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kHqgRYzKV_FWDjPqZkr_D4B4jG2tf6nGhHUH0W7nBM4/edit?tab=t.0

Decision Log

• Feb 2026: Aim to incorporate the original Matter-lock only approach as a technical baseline to proceed. Phased approach with Phase 1 here Add Matter lock user and credential management services home-assistant/core#161936
• Feb 2026: Aligned to basically proceed with proposed Phase 1 PR Add Matter lock user and credential management services home-assistant/core#161936. One more round on Matter commands used to be done. Notes are included in the doc linked in the Additional context section. Once backend part is finished frontend activities can conclude Matter lock manager home-assistant/frontend#28672
• Feb 2026: Based on the alignments done we aim to attach credentials to a device rather than a HA user. While this might be re-thought in a later step

Q&A

No response