I just borrowed my girlfriends iPhone. And it appears to be working with home kit. Chat gpt says the apple app will act as matter controller while the Google one doesn’t. Does that make any sense? Doesn’t the bridge also act as controller for the bridged items?
I was just typing this when you posted, but yes i think this may be a corner case of not having Google Home/Hub hardware.
Just FYI, when I unplug my Google Speaker, my android device with Google home shows all the devices in their last known state, but does not update them and it can not control them, and does not try connecting to the openHAB bridge. I would actually expect it to be able to report and control devices, since i assume the matter credentials are shared to google home clients in the same account (at least they do in the apple home ecosystem). It may be that you need an actual Google home device to actually query and control matter devices, a mobile only client can only pair to the bridge.
I have no google home hub hardware, am running OH in a container, and used exclusively android devices to configure the matter bridge connection between OH and Google home. I have only configured a single device to be available in google home via the bridge (a light switch, mostly as a test), but I can confirm that device is online, and always responsive.
I kind of fumbled around for a little bit learning as I went while I was working out the configuration so I can’t say that I did any one thing in particular, but if there are configs or logs I can share that might help, let me know.
Thats interesting, so your android phone is directly connecting to the openHAB Matter bridge for control, i not sure then what the issue is, since at least my android device is not able to connect either (although i have a Google speaker that was attached, so maybe its stuck trying to use that)
Also reading: Prepare your smart home for Matter - Google Nest Help Google states you need a supported Google hub to add devices to Home, so i’m not sure if a standalone android phone is actually a support use case?
Interesting then I must have a device that is acting as a hub that I didn’t know could do that. I have 2 gen4 nest thermostats, 2 nest protects, 3 ancient nestcams, and a couple chromecasts.
Edit: D’oh! I forgot I have google mini speaker still plugged in down in the basement. I got two free years ago and we don’t use them for anything at all. The one I played with for a while for various other projects is unplugged on my desk right now, but the other one is still connected. I guess it got updated to act as a matter hub at some point (I’ve had them since before matter was even a thing so I didn’t even consider it).
So, I take it back. I guess I do have a piece of hub hardware.
So apparently google didn’t implement the full matter stack on the phone. That’s a bummer. I was looking to use that to not have to use the openhab Google integration which is by the looks of it a complete mess compared to apple.
Also weird that the app does not complain in any way. Even though it’s clear that this won’t work because there is no google device in the network.
I have a fix up for this, will be backported as well.
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