I agree - I made an earlier comment about "Matter" becoming a buzzword like "Cloud". However over time + lots of negative reviews by Press & Tech Influencers could rapidly change that. The issue is all the hype and Utopian promises being made about Matter itself before it's release.
If Hubitat, Inc advertises their hub as Matter compatible (with future update) then they could take advantage of the good marketing and avoid the bad press/reviews if things start to go pear shaped. Only the major players seem like they can get away with "doesn't work quite right" for now.
It is a little concerning that there seems to be a lot of incompatibility issues at the start of all this. You'd think the spec would be a little more clear and that there would be some sort of acceptance testing or verification.
Matter was implemented on select echo devices, HomeKit, and hue hub (opt in beta) and it works great. Definitely not a shoehorned in solution. I do wonder though, once Hubitat supports Matter, will Alexa, google, and other hub integrations (like the new HomeKit one) even have any value.
Was referring to the C7 hub not those others. It would be wonderful if they Hubitat, Inc could retrofit but more likely it will appear on their next gen hub in the future but dunno.
I heard the Google Hub is currently the "best" of the bunch. So you are using the Hue Hub? If so how is it working for non-Hue Matter devices? Are you using Matter devices or Matter to share devices between hubs? The latter is where I've heard of most of the issues.
I am not anti-Matter (bad pun).. just want to be able to leverage my existing Z-Wave/Zigbee devices without having to re-purchase everything. This should certainly be doable with a Matter capable hub. So far there are issues but as I mentioned - it's still early yet.
After my experience with the C7's 700 Z-Wave fisco ....
I prefer they wait it out and take their time on C8 if it going to be Matter supported. I will jump in early buy but I do hope they get it all sorted and tested hundred-fold before releasing next hub if it contains a new upgraded radio chipset.
Are you sure you're not thinking Thread? Some of the Z-Wave "issues" were related to the firmware of the SiLabs 700 Series chipset. Thread would likely be a dual Zigbee/Thread radio and you might expect some growing pains there.
Matter is more like a universal HubMesh. I don't think it requires any new hardware but I could be wrong. Maybe additional processing power/memory.
edit: what would be interesting is if they eventually deprecated HubMesh in favor of Matter....
Hue hub does not support thread yet, and I am not aware of it being able to control other matter devices. I will have to try it out. I use matter to bridge the hue devices with HomeKit, so that HomeKit knows about all my hue lights and controls them.
What is cool, but I am not clear if this is part of the spec, is that with matter, I don’t get my hue groups (rooms and zones) only the devices (lights, dimmers, etv). In HomeKit if I create a device group, they all respond immediately and in sync, where with the original hue integration, the HomeKit would send the commands one at a time to each light, similar to what HE native hue app does.
I thought that Mike Maxwell had said that "time-slicing" using one radio for both Zigbee and Thread wasn't an approach he liked at all when we were discussing Thread support some time back. I was thinking/hoping that meant whe HE took on Thread it would have a separate radio for it. I haven't been keeping up on that part of what we see in the FCC stuff so don't know if there are clues there about one or two radios to support Thread and Zigbee.
Ah - just found this from @rlithgow1 on radios in the "FCC C-8" thread. I would assume that if we get two radios no time-slicing required.
Ah, bummer, thanks for clarifying...maybe @rlithgow1 was seeing double.
Be interesting to hear from Mike about how the radio in is set up to do both Zigbee and Thread, assuming this is all "real" and represents a C8 that is really happening.
Based on the frequencies supported by the zigbee chip (as indicated in the FCC application), it is either a CC1352, or a SiLabs Mighty Gecko. Both of them can either time-slice or work exclusively in one mode or the other.
The FCC data indicates just one zigbee radio. I haven’t seen any recent hub implement two zigbee radios; wonder if it is difficult to engineer without interference.
I don't really see the need for HE to have a thread radio. It might be nice for early adopters, but everything I have read about thread points to HE not needing a thread radio.
It is clear that thread can be built into existing wifi home networking equipment. If you currently buy a Google Nest Wifi Pro it will have a thread router built in. If thread becomes mainstream, I am sure it will be built into Ubiquiti, TP-Link, and other home networking equipment providers. Just have your existing wifi access points act as the thread border router, plug your hubitat into your network and done.
I may be missing something here, but I imagine IF thread becomes a popular smarthome standard this is how it will look. But it may obviously take sometime before the network manufacturers (Ubiquiti, TP-LInk, Netgear) get on board. But clearly since the vast majority of homes already have wifi being distributed throughout their homes, this is where the border router should be implemented.
I could be wrong about all this, I guess we will just have to see.
Under this scenario, HE can support Matter without the need for a Thread Border Router.
This is where Matter comes in - you wouldn't need Thread at all really just a smart hub that supports Matter so all your devices could be shared and the hub could utilize other hubs devices.
A fun but compelling thought I mentioned earlier would be to replace HubMesh with Matter.. Doing so should allow Hubitat, Inc to eventually deprecate a bunch of apps including Alexa, Hue, Google Home, and possibly even Lutron, Apple etc. Making things simpler and more flexible.
(Disclaimer/Reminder: This is pure speculation, I HAVE NO INSIDER KNOWLEDGE, NOR DO I WORK FOR Hubitat, Inc)
This shoe fits... the very FACT that HE "could do" multiple device communication protocols well was(is likely) VERY high in the selection criteria. The fact that I "chooser to be a user" of ONLY Zigbee was an afterthought based on observations that came later. But I don't feel "boxed in" by this HE hub, only by the mesh I have chooser, errrr I mean user, to focus on making robust.
