I recently added a few Matter bulbs and a ZEN32 to a room. Added the bulbs in Google Home, shared them to Hubitat. Then added some room lighting rules tied to the ZEN32 buttons. I'm seeing an issue where if actions are taken via voice in the Google Home the state isn't reflected back to Hubitat - so results when pressing the buttons aren't predictable/intuitive.
The easiest scenario is if I activate a lighting behavior with a button, then turn off the bulbs via voice using Google Home's native controls. If I press the button for that behavior, nothing happens. I have to press another button (works most reliably with the one associated with an "Off" room lighting behavior), then I can press the button and have the behavior activate.
Other scenarios are things like changing the dim level, color, etc.
Is there a way to have the bulb state push back to Hubitat or just have the button always activate the behavior even if it thinks it's already active?
Where are you looking for this state? Since you mentioned Room Lighting, it could be either the "activator" device created by the Room Lighting instance (commanding this device controls all devices in the RL instance at once, either to the specified settings or to a certain state you command the activator device to, depending on what you do and your settings) or one or more individual lights or other devices that are used in this RL instance.
This distinction matters, because by default, Room Lighting works best when it's in control of everything.
Possibly; this is one of the things I'm referring to above. The "Activate even if already partially activated" option should do what you want in this case. There's a similar option for the "Turn off" half of the automation, too, if you want that.
But:
With most devices this happens on its own. This is one of the reasons I'm asking above if you're looking at the bulb states (or maybe I should ask if you even looked at all or are just assuming based on the behavior, which could be entirely unrelated to this due to the default behavior of the app). It's a bit unusual if they don't, but the brand/model might be good to know if so.
The matter bulbs should be pushing their states back to Hubitat. You can confirm this in the logs. Assuming the logs look normal and you are using Room Lighting, there are three potential solutions to this:
1.) Add the bulbs as a Means to Turn on Room Lighting. This way, Room Lighting will activate when you turn on the bulbs via Google. Your button pushes should toggle like normal since Room Lighting is active. You will also want to add the bulbs as Means to Turn Off as well. This way Room Lighting turns off when the bulbs turn off via voice.
2.) The other way is to create a Room Lighting Activator device and share that back to Google. When you use voice commands, send them to the Room Lighting Activator Device. This will activate Room Lighting and allow your buttons to work like normal.
3.) In your Means options, select Activate even if partially activated and Turn off even if partially turned off. These options would allow for distinct buttons to always do their actions regardless of state. This option can also be tied into either 1 or 2 listed above as well.
Results have been weird. It was working as expected when I tested it last night. Logs looked great.
After coming back several hours later, the button presses weren't turning on the lights. After triggering the bulbs via voice with Google Home (Hey Google turn on Matter Bulbs), everything started working again.
I did not have my PC with me, so I don't know what was going on in the logs.
Weird that Hubitat didn't seem to be able to control the bulbs until I had gotten the GH involved.
Next time that happens, you'll actually want to go into Hubitat Settings and select the Matter Fabric. Some Matter via WiFi devices can "fall off" the fabric. They usually come back in a little bit, which sounds like the case here. You might want to see if there are any firmware updates for the bulbs as Matter still has some growing pains.
I think you need the AiDot app to update the firmware for those bulbs. Most WiFi via Matter devices use the manufacturers app to update firmware rather than the Matter commissioner. Once the device has been updated, you can delete the app and continue to use Google Home/Hubitat.
