It didn’t start that way. SI Labs acquired the Zigbee Alliance a few years ago, or maybe it was the other way around.
Unfortunately it’s not. The original OH binding had to be built through reverse engineering. They eventually published their API but there are some shenanigans going on with the latest version of Zwave and access to the API.
Lowes did indeed release a system and sold devices and hubs for a few years. I think it was called something like Iris.
Ikea has their Tradfri system (which is mostly Zigbee based) but Ikea is among the members of the CSA so I expect they too will move to Matter when the time comes.
There’s a varied history with Google. Technology wise Google had Wave which I think has largely been dropped (nothing but a few Google devices used it anyway) and Google actually developed Thread with the Zigbee Alliance which Matter will be based on. They bought Revolv (I think that was the name) but it seems clear it was always a purchase to obtain patents and technology, not to keep the product line going. So they shut it down and because it required Internet, it bricked all those devices.
It’s a lesson most of us have learned more than once. If it requires an Internet service to work, you don’t own the device.
Zwave isn’t a bad choice really. It’s usually quite a bit more expensive than alternatives but it’s a mature technology with a lot of choices and not dependency on the cloud. But, in the future I’m not sure I’d recommend it quite as strongly. The good thing about a system like OH (and HA for that matter) is you are not locked in. If you replace one of those Zwave switches with a Shelly 1 or Shelly 2 it’s no big deal. You are not stuck with Insteon and Zwave forever and you are not stuck with only those two technologies. You have the ability to choose what fits best, even if that means introducing a new technology.
That’s too bad. I’ve been half keeping my eye open for a good ceiling fan controller that works with OH.
Depends on what you mean by “hubs”. The big Amazon Alexa already supports Zwave I think (but then OH can’t really use them) as does SmartThings and others. I’d expect Hue to move to Matter at some point (it’s already Zigbee(ish) so it’s not a big lift).
But if you mean USB transceivers that OH would locally interact with, Sonoff looks like they are moving in that direction already (see ITead’s “Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus” (model “ZBDongle-E”) based on Silicon Labs EFR32MG21 +20dBm radio MCU now sold for $19.99). I expect Aeotech and others will follow suit. But I’m not sure what sort of API these USB sticks will support. Will it be defined like Zwave so any controller from any manufacturer works, or does each vender have their own API similar to how Zigbee works today.
Ideally, we want OH to be the hub, or at least the software behind the hub so the USB dongle approach is what we would be looking for the most I think. But it’s the support of Google Hub, Alexa, and Homekit that will drive the industry at large to use Thread and create devices that use it.
Long story short, the company just shut off the lights and closed down without warning. The C level execs wiped Insteon from their LinkedIn profiles and everything. I think the company then went into receivership and a new group of investors either bought the company outright or bought the tech and resurrected the company. So there was a couple weeks of “no more Insteon” and now we have “back under new management”.
The new owners seem to understand a bit better what they got and what it will take to keep it going.
That’s sort of the raison d’être of openHAB. openHAB is your bridge. It consolidates all the sensor readings and all the actuators so, based on any event (e.g. a temperature change) it can issue a command (e.g. turn off the AC). Once it’s connected to OH, it doesn’t matter if the thermometer is Insteon and the thermostat is Zwave.