I'm trying to use the new Matter integration functionality announced by Bruce (@bravenel ) yesterday.
My configuration is that I have an Apple TV as my Matter controller. I have an Aqara Hub M2 that is bridged to the Apple TV and exposes devices connected to the Aqara Hub as Matter compatible devices. I have an Aqara smart wall switch and an Aqara Plug exposed as Matter devices this way. I can control both of them from the Apple Home app.
I'm trying to link the Aqara Plug to my Hubitat C-8. I have enabled Matter support on the C-8. Here are the steps I've taken to link the Aqara Plug to my C-8.
In the apple home app I selected the Aqara Plug
On the displayed device dialog I pressed the gear icon
On the settings page for the device I selected Bridge
I selected to turn on pairing mode and copied the displayed matter setup code.
On the Hubitat I selected to add a matter device
I entered the matter setup code
I selected to start pairing
When pairing was complete I entered a name for the device and skipped selecting a room
I viewed device details
The device type was not set so I selected Generic Matter Outlet
I saved the device.
At this point the device feedback is not displayed and trying to turn the outlet on/off from the hubitat doesn't work. Again, there is no problem turning it on/off from the apple home app.
Does the device itself support matter or only because it is paired through the Aqara bridge?
Not sure if it will work through the bridge like that or not.
Sounds like maybe you paired the Aqara bridge to HE and not the device itself.
First, the 3rd Gen AppleTV 4K can definitely be used as a matter controller. I do know that for a fact.
I just unplugged both the Aqara plug and hub, plugged them back in, waited 5 minutes and still no luck.
This is how Aqara has made their devices compatible with Matter, through the Hub. The individual devices don't support matter but the Hub acts as a bridge. I was on the device page for the plug in the apple home app when I got it to give me the pairing code. However, as you pointed out, I don't really know whether that somehow paired the Aqara hub with the Hubitat and not the aqara plug.
Given that I got the pairing code from the plug settings I would hope that it would be for the plug and not the hub.
Thanks
@jtp10181 - I think you are right and that it linked the hub and not the plug. I will contact Aqara and see if I can find out how to get a pairing code from the devices connected to the hub and not the hub itself.
THANKS!
Since the device does not support Matter itself I do not think it is possible to get a Matter pairing code for it. You paired the bridge itself, you said you clicked on the bridge from the device and then got the code from there. There is no driver built to support Matter bridges (yet?). I am guessing support will be added but nothing official has been stated.
Thanks @thebearmay ! Am I correct that once there are bridge drivers then the devices connected through the bridge will be available on the Hubitat in the same way I can access the devices connected through the Aqara Hub on the AppleTV through the Apple Home app?
Thanks again
Yes. So once the bridge drivers are built, and you connect the bridge to the matter fabric, everything attached to the other side of that bridge will be available.
I am going to say, probably.
I am also going to say it is probably going to be a mess to figure out, because I imagine the bridge device will need to create child devices below it for every attached device. So the driver will need to determine what capabilities the devices have and then create each child device. It will also need to be able to forward events and commands within HE bidirectionally from the bridge "device" to the child devices.
It will basically be similar to the community Tuya cloud integration in the way it works with child devices.
May actually work better with some sort of custom integration app involved, if thats possible.
I think one community dev already has an Aqara bridge, not sure if he is going to tackle this or not. I do not have any devices and I don't think this would be possible without local testing.
Thanks @jtp10181. It has been a while since I played with linking the Aqara hub to my AppleTV and then accessing the devices connected to the hub. However, if memory serves me correctly it was pretty much an auto-magic thing where the Aqara devices connected to the hub simply showed up in the Apple Home app after the hub was linked to the AppleTV through Matter. Then again, Apple has infinite cash and programmers to throw at this stuff
I wouldn't expect it to work that way with Matter.... At least it sure didn't when I setup a Matter bridge the other week...
But Matter is quickly evolving... v1.0 was just over a year ago and v1.2 was already released, and v1.3 in review phase... So they are marching forward quickly with their advertised 2x/year release cadence.
It might get to the "auto-magic" state at some point not that far into the future.
It would be great if it was possible to reuse the existing system Matter drivers for the bridged devices. Unfortunately, I don't see a way to do it.
Using this approach allows reusing most of the system component drivers, but the Matter-specific commands still need to be implemented in the parent driver.
