Perfect! I can see all of @Jamesboag304's locks. Excellent!
4 Likes
the release notes don't say anything about Matter. Is matter only via Homekit at the moment?
HomeKit and Matter are two completely different things. To clarify, the HomeKit integration permits Hubitat-paired devices to be made available to Apple HomeKit. It doesn't work the other way around.
3 Likes
@danabw @bobbyD , Me too, nice update overall - things are looking a bit slicker.
Looks like homebridge for me is on the way out, less moving parts should = more reliability.
Well done team, great work !!
4 Likes
Yeap, because nothing for Matter support has been added yet.
6 Likes
I’m not sure I follow what he’s saying.
No one’s “talking about it” from the general consumer’s perspective, so it is going to follow through on all the hype?
Or it’s not going to?
Matter’s invisibility is partly by design: thanks to cross-brand compatibility with the spec, everything is supposed to just work.
1 Like
Yep, no shockers there.
Using a travel analogy... Consumers were led to believe that Matter would be some kind of all-inclusive "open boarders" passport among the various manufacturers, but unsurprising to those of us who've been in this game for a while, all the big players will still require a special ($$) visa to enjoy the real benefits of being inside their realm.
Matter was indeed a very cunning way for the big players to collaboratively generate buzz and interest to that wider audience who haven't gotten into smart home stuff yet. And for those folks, maybe the limited interoperability will be good enough for their initially-simple needs.
In the end, Matter isn't going to move the needle very much. Perhaps a little, but not nearly on the scale those early rosy promises would lead you to believe.
5 Likes
Unfortunately the reverse might be true for a good long while (moving the smart home adoption needle down). The push for Matter since late 2019 has given consumers the utopian idea that Matter is the holy-grail of smart home, and that without it, a true smart home doesn't exist. Well, it's almost 2024 and Matter is still not what they promised back then, so consumers are tired of waiting and tired of broken promises. Will take years and an equal amount of effort to regain the trust and interest of the same consumers who initially embarked on the Matter bandwagon back in 2019.
"...the project is currently on track to see first devices through certification in late 2021, depending on manufacturer go-to-market plans. Devices targeted for launch include lighting and electrical (e.g., light bulbs, luminaires, controls, plugs, outlets), HVAC controls (e.g., thermostats, AC units), access controls (e.g., door locks, garage doors), safety and security (e.g., sensors, detectors, security systems), window coverings/shades, TVs, access points, bridges and others." - Connectivity Standards Alliance Unveils Matter , published May 11, 2021.
4 Likes
All good points... I think Matter can and likely will effectively lower the barrier of entry for folks totally new to smarthome.
That's not a bad thing -- it's more money in the manu's pockets, and most of those new folks will probably be content with the basic/"minimum" interoperability Matter will provide. More people adopting smarthome stuff will drive more products & innovation, and that tide lifts our boats too.
But as robust smarthome users, we're all already well past most (if not all) those initial barriers Matter will help knock down for newbs.
For instance, I'll be interested to see if (one day) HE and Hue can more efficiently connect via Matter, but I'm not holding my breath. Perhaps that's not even a good example (I have no idea), but you get what I mean.
1 Like
What is more likely from the way I understand it is, could be similar to how we have a bunch of Geneirc Zwave drivers that give basic support for different device types. Matter over Wifi/IP would allow a Generic Matter Plug driver for example, to (in theory) control any plug/outlet that follows the matter standards. Similar to how all Zwave certified devices follow the same set of rules for communication. Possibly the hub would have a new device type for Matter which does discovery via the LAN to make it easy to add new devices (similar to Zwave discovery on Zwave Network).
Further I think once the device is joined to the local Matter network, supposedly any other matter hub can then find and communicate directly with that device. I assume the device would send out global status updated for all hubs to pick up.
Matter over thread would be different story, since HE does not have any near plans to support a Thread radio. But I am sure there will be ways to get a separate Thread hub (Hue maybe?) to talk to HE via a local API.
4 Likes
I got my first Matter device this week. It was a smart color LED bulb that Amazon threw in as a freebee with a new Echo I ordered. Here are my impressions in the order they happened:
- The moment I turned on power to the lamp, my wifi app alerted me that a new device had joined the network. So Amazon pre-programmed the bulb with my wifi credentials? Not sure I like that. Somehow it has never surprised me when they pre-programmed my wifi creds into an Echo device, but into a bulb? I wasn't expecting that.
- Ok, so now I know this is a wifi device. It's not zigbee, or Thread, or anything like that. I hear that in Matter over wifi, the hubs talk directly to the devices, but this device could still "phone home" somewhere, unless I block it at my router.
- My Alexa app quickly alerted me about the bulb, and auto-joined it, even giving it a name. I assume this is something Amazon did to be "helpful", and not something about Matter in general.
- I then started trying out its color change abilities. It worked very well through voice commands or the Alexa app.
- I knew I couldn't actually join this bulb to my Hubitat, which means I'm going to end up giving it away, but I wanted to play with Matter. So next, I wanted to try cross-joining it to my Apple HomeKit.
- Nothing in the bulb's instructions told how to do that.
- I went into my iPhone Home app to see if I could add it. It didn't show up there.
- Now I google it, and discover that, from whatever hub it joined to originally, there will be a process to expose it so that another Hub can find it. (Probably different on every platform, of course.)
- So I found that option in the Alexa app. Exposed it for joining to other hubs.
- Now I can see it for adding in iPhone Home app. Let's do it! It warns me it could take a couple minutes. (Wait, a couple minutes to share EACH device? I don't like the sound of that.)
- A spinner... for minutes... and more minutes...
- It failed to join.
- I try again 3 or 4 times, always fails after multiple minutes. No clue offered about how it could be fixed.
So that's it. I'm done with this bulb. It was a curiosity, but I'll give it to a friend who only wants to control 2 or 3 bulbs from his Alexa. Probably done with Matter too. I'm sure different vendors will improve the integration process over time. But now that I have first-hand experience with how the architecture works, I can see that it violates my own beliefs about good software architecture. (Single source of truth, Don't Repeat Yourself, assume all networks can and will partition when you don't want them to so don't introduce those links unnecessarily, etc) I'll stick to my linear architecture, confined within my own network. I know I can find and fix problems in it when they happen.
9 Likes
It doesn't need to preprogram your wifi creds. Instead it sends the new device id to your existing devices and saying "it's okay to share creds with this device."
It's called "Amazon Frustration-Free Setup." See the FAQ for more information.
Mostly secure in theory, but I am not really a fan.
4 Likes
Amazon does still save WiFi credentials to the cloud when you enter the password while setting up new devices like Echos, though.
And the checkbox defaults to checked, rather than unchecked, which I find particularly irritating.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201730860
1 Like
That's slightly better. It means they didn't pre-program the bulb itself before shipping it, and they can do some security on the server side.
Still, as a user I didn't find it frustration-free. I found it surprising. And surprising is not great when we're talking about security.
5 Likes
Completely agree.
2 Likes
This is exactly how Matter will work. I'm currently running Phillips Hue via Matter connected to Google Home with CoCoHue bringing it into Hubitat. Right now, Matter only allows certain functions. With bulbs, that is on/off, brightness, color/color temperature. Switches are on/off and level. Plugs are just on/off. Groups and Scenes are not brought in via Matter. For Hue, that means the App is important along with either the built-in (groups) or two community apps (both groups and scenes). I don't think I would connect my Hue bulbs via Matter to Hubitat due to the loss of functionality, but my holiday plugs? Absolutely. I would gain local control via Hubitat and the Google Home app with voice control obviously being cloud dependent.
My view with Hubitat and Matter is that it would allow my family to use the Google Home app is a local control dashboard (which they already know how to use) rather than the dashboard provided by Hubitat. Automation would reside with Hubitat and Google can do the voice control.
Have you tested this by shutting off access to the outside internet to see if you can still control the hue bulbs from google home? I would be surprised if it works.
In order to commission a Matter device to a second controller, there's a specific process. The first controller that you joined a matter device to will need turn on pairing for that device. When pairing is turned on, it should give you a new Matter code. In the second Matter controller you 'add' a new device but you MUST use this new Matter code that was generated by the other controller. You CAN NOT use the Matter code printed on the physical device. That will NEVER work for additional controllers.
In the Apple Home app it's a little hidden how you add a device using the generated matter code. You have to tap through several onboarding screens before it let's you manually enter a Matter code. After that, it should add in 1-2 minutes to Apple Home.
In Apple Home you Add Accessory -> More Options -> My accessory isn't shown here -> Enter code -> --Paste in Matter pairing code from other controller-- Wait 1-2 minutes and it should commission in Apple Home.
5 Likes
