I'm really sad to say this, as I like Hubitat, but the Matter integration on Hubitat is a joke! (Even with Hubitat advertising as if Matter was completely supported)
I have several Matter devices, but I can't completely trust the protocol on Hubitat, as I can on Home Assistant, HomeKit and more. That isn't a protocol problem, but a Hubitat problem.
It's very common for Matter devices on Hubitat to become unresponsive, stop answering sensors status or similar things. To me, it's simples to fix, since I can just Discovery All or reboot Hubitat, however, how can I recommend Hubitat to a Client with problems like that?
Most of the time, Hubitat can't trust about virtual 3rd way or Matter sensor automations. Any reboot is enough to break all Matter automations! Matter devices just stop sending status and stop completely 3rd way, for example.
All my attempts to report Matter poor protocol are in vain, so my only answer is: Give up from Matter on Hubitat.
I tend to agree. Matter support seems awful on Hubitat. You can't commission any devices natively and that is a huge bummer. I can individually reshare single matter devices with Hubitat as long as they're already commissioned somewhere else first, AND it seems to take a huge chunk of system resources from Hubitat to do so. Yay!
In my case reboot of the hub does not break Matter devices. However few times all Matter devices became unresponsive after I had to reboot Asus router. Very quick fix is/was to "initialize" Matter devices by clicking this button on the device page. But gladly they are coming back on its own (unfortunately I did not catch how long does it take).
I haven't seen any significant issues, but I only have a handful of devices. It shouldn't be bombing out on you, that doesn't seem normal, and I haven't seen mass complaints of it on here.
I think the root of the issue is Matter itself, it is a literal crapshow right now. This podcast is very revealing. Worth the watch...
My understanding of this is the newer phone apps are going to support this at some point. The old app wasn't capable of doing this (for whatever reason).
There is probably stuff going on in the background with various engineers to make this all work as it should. With a smaller team, this may not be the highest priority given the state of Matter. Even the device manufacturers are barely rolling out Matter products.
So, devices using Advanced Hub driver I can click in Discovery All, but in devices without specific driver I need to manually press any button to recover the status.
This is bad for sensors from Aqara M2.
In certain cases, Hubitat simply can't get information about the sensors and this breaks automations.
One of my Matter devices just stop status. Even pressing on/off on Hubitat, nothing happened. Some minutes later, device back responding on Hubitat again...
So, it looks like Hubitat break connection and I need to change device state to make it try to connect again. However, this isn't a expected behavior, since it break automations (in the case of sensors) or even Virtual 3rd way.
Users often forget that Matter is still in its infancy while Zigbee and Z-wave have been in use for years. Yet, some manufacturers still fudge on the Zigbee standards. Z-wave is more tightly controlled than Zigbee.
Some day Matter might achieve its goal of universal standardization, but it is unlikely that all early adopters will find things to be as smooth as advertised.
I'm not defending Hubitat's implementation, but I will say that I have Matter devices drop off both my Google and Amazon Matter fabrics regularly (multiple different vendor Matter devices).
@vctgomes,
I am interested to know a little more about your matter setup and devices & drivers you are using.
I have been using Matter bridges and devices since the beta testing of the Matter Advanced driver, and have been using it as my main setup in Hubitat since then.
Some of the problems you mention, I have experienced in the early days, but now the only issue I encounter is that a bridge may lose communication when I disconnect the router, or my Mesh network loses connection to the router, for example.
Yes, I also have access to Home Assistant with matter devices setup there as well. I have 4 Matter Bridges, all using the Matter Advanced Bridge driver, and all running automations in Hubitat.
I also use the Aqara M3 hub as a back system; mainly for lights, with some sensors and button support, so that if I am playing with the Hubitat hub then my lighting automations still work.
I have however struggled with matter plug sockets and found them to be less reliable, and stopped using them, will probably try and bring them back in the future.
All of above, yes. While my overall day-to-day experience w/Matter at this point is pretty good, all I have is four Tapo outlets and two Govee lights, so it's not like I'm stressing the system. But they are all working, don't dop off.
However, I would never put anything "mission critical" on Matter at this point, way too early for me on a new tech.
I'm of the same opinion (and of those of many other quotes I omitted,) but...
Let's say I were to put something currently automatively-meaningless on the wall. Say, the broom closet's light switch. Not critical for any automations today, but you will either put some rules on it today that are acceptable to have the occasional miss and/or will want it solid at some point in the future. (My point is it may not be crucial today, but neither is it a throwaway item. You want it to work correctly, at least eventually, without losing the device cost.)
Do you put in Matter today? (regardless of hub or device) Or, do you wait until the bugs are ironed out? Obviously, no one knows for sure, but these are all firmware/software bugs (or even SDK frameworks) to be improved upon, but the underlying hardware should be safe, no? You may need to buckle in tight, but you'll get there. Sooner or later...
I replaced somewhat mission critical Zigbee Linptech mmWave sensors with Matter MS600 mmWave/PIR sensors. So far so good. But generally I am trying to avoid Matter devices at this time.
