Hey folks, wanted to share this since I didn’t see it anywhere on these forums
I think this might be a potentially great opportunity to allow all “Works with Google” devices to play nice in the OpenHAB ecosystem directly — for those who don’t mind connecting through Google instead of a binding
Something we might want to jump on quick through the Waitlist link at the bottom of this post
P.S. Could also help with matter onboarding through the Commissioning API
Reference Article
This means that any app maker — smart home-related or not — can access the over 600 million devices connected to Google Home and tap into the Google Home automation engine to create smart solutions for their users inside their own app.
The Home APIs can access any Matter device or Works with Google Home device and allows developers to build their own experiences using Google Home devices and automations into their apps on both iOS and Android.
They also leverage Google Home’s automation signals, such as motion from sensors, an appliance’s mode changing, or Google’s Home and Away mode, which uses various signals to determine if a home is occupied.
The Home APIs are already available to Google’s early access partners, and Google is opening up a waitlist for any developer to sign up today. “We are opening up access on a rolling basis so they can begin building and testing within their apps,” Anish Kattukaran, head of product at Google Home and Nest, told The Verge. “The first apps using the home APIs will be able to publish to the Play and App stores in the fall.”
Thanks for the notice, I have put us on the waiting list on behalf of the openHAB Foundation.
What isn’t really clear to me from the website is how this Home API looks like, when you are not on Android or iOS. Will there be a local HTTPS API to the Hubs? Probably not - it might only go through the cloud in this situation (which would be a pity).
Disclaimer: I won’t be able to work myself on such an integration, I only made sure that we officially get on the waiting list. So if there are volunteers interested in diving deeper in this topic, please let me know and I’ll make sure that any communication from Google is shared.
If the Nest device integration works well it may be nice to use the Home APIs instead of the SDM API used by the Nest Binding. EOL-ing the SDM API is probably the next step anyways if the Home API has enough feature parity. It would be the 3rd API used for integrating Nest devices in openHAB.
Kai, I could be interested to help in such integration … in case there is a local API that can be called from Java.
First, I have to buy a first Matter device, there are not yet too much devices available on the market. I will buy the Tapo P110M and then try to use it with my old Google Home mini as Matter hub.
As I understood, all Google home devices were upgraded to become Matter hubs. Is it correct even for the old Google Home Mini ?
Only the Gen 1 Nest Hub Max has the radio. Gen 1 Hubs (the smaller ones) do not, you need at least a second gen to get the radio. The Nest Wifi has the radios too.
At I/O they announced that they are adding Matter support to Google TV too, but it’s still unknown if they have a Thread radio hidden in there or if they are just going to support Matter of WiFi and/or BT.
I use a lot of Google products, but I’m admittedly skeptical about putting effort into this given their track record with APIs.
It’s also frustrating since the point of Matter was to be less reliant on individual companies having their own APIs. I’ve gone from being really excited about Matter to not particularly caring about it.
Don’t forget that this API provides access to all devices that work with Google Home. Matter is only a part of it. There are an awful lot of devices out there that work with Google but do not have an OH boinding.
And given their track record, it seems likely that they will kill the SDM API at some point. If we don’t at least explore supporting this new API we might be stuck not being able to support anything from Google at all.
In short, this is much bigger than just Matter support.
I received my Tapo device which is a Matter device (Tapo P110M).
Matter is definitely not yet mature or does not match what everybody expects. I was not able to setup the device through Google Home. Instead, I was forced to install the TP-Link Tapo app on my phone, create an account to Tapo cloud to finally setup my device. Once done, I was finally able to setup the device with Google Home through Matter.
— for those who don’t mind connecting through Google instead of a binding 
