I bought a Matter device to play with (what other reason would compel someone buy one?) I commissioned it with Google home and it went well. Then I wanted to test the local part. I disconnected the internet and as usual, all my Google devices became senile. No surprise there. I fired up the Google app to find every device were offline, including the Matter one. There was no way of controling it.
How can ones turn on or off his Matter bulb without being connected to the internet? Was'nt it suppose to be local?
(I know: buy a C8 and it will be controlable offline)
The matter device was not really off line and yes using a hubitat would have allowed you to maintain connection to it. The issue is that google itself is not local, it's somewhat cloud based. So when you cut your internet, google couldn't talk to the mother ship and when you opened your app, your app couldn't see anything on googles servers because the google hub couldn't connect to the mothership. Likely any automations on google would have fired (someone correct me if I'm wrong) but your control was gone when you killed the internet because google and amazon alexa are mostly cloud based.
So if the average Joe (who doesn't have the wisdom of buying a Hubitat hub and only have Nest hub) is sold on the promess of local control, buy a Matter device, will be stuck with an unresponsive device in case of internet outage.
Well they should understand it's not a matter issue, it's a hub manufacturers issue. You can't blame a matter manufacturer for the behavior of the controller. Hell Alexa can easily handle zigbee devices. Who's fault is it when it disconnects that those devices cannot be controller? NYCE? Tuya? No.... Amazon...
I'll also say the average person who is using google/echo as their primary hub doesn't care about local control anyway. (Note: Homekit handles it just fine locally)
Any Matter capable controller that ever promised local should work fine. So Hubitat, Apple Home Hubs, Aqara M2 (Maybe) and the upcoming M3 will be a TBR so it should for sure work, Home Assistant, Homey Pro
Google should still be able to communicate with other Matter devices without internet, but they haven't introduced local control to the Google Home app.
I would assume the control of the device between the Google hub and the device is done locally. However the app on your phone connecting to the Google ecosystem is cloud based
The Apple Homekit app I believe will work without an internet connection, as long as you are on the same LAN as your Home hub / devices.
(Maybe) and the upcoming M3 will be a TBR so it should for sure work, Home Assistant, Homey Pro
