The Verge has taken an early look at Eve devices that have been firmware-upgraded to the Matter standard (using Thread radios).
I’m a little disappointed by this:
Once a Matter device is onboarded to one platform, you can’t just add it to another platform as a new device. You have to go through the pairing process from the original app. This is not clearly explained anywhere, and the settings for “Linking Services” are buried deeply in all three apps.
Removing devices from multiple services at once didn’t work. In all three platforms, the option to unlink all services from a device is there — which I went to do when I had to reset the Eve sensors. But it only seemed to remove it from the app that I was using; I still had to manually remove it from the other apps.
I was also under the impression that we’d be able to add a device to the Matter mesh and it would automatically be available to all platforms/apps in the mesh. This is much clunkier (though probably still better).
I remain of the opinion that there’s no good reason to leap into Matter/Thread immediately.
Given that now Matter 1.1 is out and more and more devices are comming I feel that OH must slowly fallow, otherwise Matteradopters have no other choice than switching to HASS.
Is there any advancement in this regard?
Not really. If someone has built their system in openHAB, they’ve done so without Matter. Whether it’s OH or HA, there’s no reason to replace working gear with Matter devices, because everything that works now will continue to work for the foreseeable future.
I remain hopeful that Matter will simplify home automation in the future, but that can’t happen until there’s an actual, functional ecosystem. I haven’t seen evidence of that yet, but perhaps you’re seeing more Matter availability where you are. As far as I can tell, it’s just not happening in Canada.
In any case, I’m not worried about people switching to HA if that works better for them. It’s not a competition.
Just fyi, from where I’m working I’m seeing huge and I really do mean freaking huge matter interest and adoption all across the spectrum.
I went from “maybe maybe maybe… to “this looks interesting” to “holy crap”.
Entire product revamps around matter, Wi-Fi enabled devices being updated with matter, devices using dongles receiving new dongles with matter.
But I do agree with @rpwong , this isn’t a race. But I expect to see tons of new possibilities (devices that required bindings to contact the cloud of the vendor to become accessible directly through a matter hub for example.)
So I remain cautiously optimistic. I wonder if there’s any work being done by openHAB devs on the HA matter hub? Would be nice to know that some contributions from our end is being done there.
Looking for compatible set of hardware is another thing. I see lots of devices being certified for new standard, which is great. Now, question is - can we identify an affordable and portable set (ideally available in US/EU/AU which could be used for further tinkering? Is there a Thread compatible USB dongle which anyone could recommend?
I’m seeing huge interest but still not a whole lot of available devices. Lots of controllers and Thread routers are on this list but not that many actual devices. For example, only three lights ship with Matter support right now, no smart switches, four smart plugs, two sensors, no locks, no thermostats, etc.
There’s a bunch of stuff expecting to get updates sometime this year that will more than could the list, but it’s still a short list. Note this article was written in April.
And you have big players like Belkin stepping back from supporting Matter at all in the near future.
I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t support Matter. Eventually it will be a must. But I don’t think availability of hardware combined with the availability of willing volunteers has reached a level where it’s feasible yet. Note that unlike HA, we are a 100% volunteer effort. We do not and can not hire developers to work on things. And it looks like HA went and developed their own USB dongle to support Zigbee/Thread/Matter. Home Assistant launches SkyConnect USB stick with Zigbee, Thread, Matter support - CNX Software but it only appears to work on Home Assistant OS and in a way that would be very challenging to support in OH I think. And so far it’s the only dongle I can find.
Matter over WiFi would probably be easier to support but I’m not sure that will take us very far.
Just to clarify - most of serial sticks I saw work more or less in the same way, regardless of manufacturer. Their role is bridging radio traffic to serial interface thus I doubt if they do anything more than just packing up packets and flushing them to the other side of USB port. Making anything more advanced on such devices is fairly difficult due to limited resources available for microcontroller.
Serial protocol is EmberZNet Serial Protocol, which I think @chris might be familiar with, given ember stick used for zigbee.
Making branded hardware is a way to cash out people interested in it and promise them better support.
Why start with Home Assistant OS support for multi-protocol?
A standalone Zigbee or standalone Thread stick works by turning radio signals into radio packets and then processing those radio packets and making that available over a serial port.
With multi-protocol, the processing of the radio packets is moved into Linux daemons. This means we run one daemon to split the radio packets into Zigbee and Thread streams, one daemon to process the Zigbee radio packets and one daemon to process the Thread radio packets.
To make this all work together, we need to strictly manage the version of the firmware on the stick and the three different Linux daemons. The easiest way for us to do this is using Home Assistant add-ons in a known host environment, which is Home Assistant OS.
Multiprotocol stuff is not new, it is supported by some of hardware manufacturers at chip/radio level. I remember some chats about dual band zigbee sticks, so its not a new concept. It also makes a ton of sense if you have two radio frequencies for specific standard to pack them into one stick. The Home Assistant messaging is just nicely put marketing.
Serial protocol they use is manufacturer specific, not specific to HA.
I’ve been hopeful that this will be the way forward. Since Matter is a mesh network combining Thread and WiFi, perhaps OH could be added to a border router as a client. Then, OH should be able to see and interact with other devices on the network. In this scenario, OH would work with Matter out of the box without requiring a Thread radio of its own.
At least, that’s how it would work in my head. Reality is probably a different story.
But hey, just now I found this. It’s beyond me to say if this could be carried over to openHAB, so I’m showing it to my talented and curious friends.
I think that is a matter (lol) of product release cycles and little more. Check this out:
It’s hidden towards the bottom, but you’ll find a list of devices (lots of lights!) being updated to matter.
That’s mostly US based, but it will scale to us.
Does this mean we have to rush in any way? Of course not.
I fully expect to see someone buying a matter device, wants it exposed to openHAB, and the following week we will have a solution for it.
I see this community as a group of people who work their best when they have a problem in front of them to work on.
I also do not feel like matter is “here” yet, so yeah… we have time.
Nearly. The issue is more likely you need to have the hardware at hand to properly develop a solution. It is possible to do this „remote“, without having the hardware, but this is really hard. I did this couple of times for Wemo devices not sold in the EU and the IntesisBox I am not using for my HVAC.
So we either have to find a developer who is willing to get those devices or find someone who is willing to provide them to a developer for implementation.
If there is a developer that is interested could they provide an idea of what hardware they would need to work on it? We could setup a bounty to cover the costs and those non-developers could put their money where their mouth is. I would certainly be willing to throw in a few euros towards it; although OpenHAB is open source I don’t think it’s unreasonable for developers to ask for loan of hardware or some help towards buying it.
I’ve already been looking for smart stuff in Europe but I can’t find anything that interesting. The tapo plug I cannot find in amazon Spain, to basically ship it to someone willing to dedicate some of their time to this. the availability is scarce at best.
no no, it’s part of the community effort. Be it bounties, providing hardware, offering moral support (or coffee. I’m always happy to buy coffee to any dev working on community projects. Or tea. Or beer.) heck, I’m not a programmer but I’ll do whatever I can to help.
Just to caution as this has burned us in the past. Donations to the openHAB Foundation cannot be used for this purpose. Some other fund raising platform would need to be used.
