There is a train leaving and we're not on it. (Matter and Homekit)

[lilyoyo1]

9 hours ago, Teken said:

If I was running it all of the same people who left NASA to go to Space X would still be there. Along with a third generation of reusable self landing main engine!

Probably not since you'd be breaking ethical and treaty rules. Most likely they'd quit, you'd lose funding, and be removed. ?

[asbril]

2 hours ago, lilyoyo1 said:

Probably not since you'd be breaking ethical and treaty rules. Most likely they'd quit, you'd lose funding, and be removed. ?

and the ping pong is on again......

[larryllix]

2 hours ago, asbril said:

and the ping pong is on again......

Cheech and Chong? I threw my paddle away.

Edited September 1, 2021 by larryllix

[upstatemike]

Matter delayed AGAIN. 

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/17/22982166/matter-smart-home-standard-postponed-fall-2022

 

[MrBill]

13 hours ago, upstatemike said:

Matter delayed AGAIN. 

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/17/22982166/matter-smart-home-standard-postponed-fall-2022

 

Increment the numbers and start over... that's why every standard is repetitively delayed... and only the heartiest can survive.  Darwin was right, "Survival of the fittest"

[upstatemike]

35 minutes ago, MrBill said:

Increment the numbers and start over... that's why every standard is repetitively delayed... and only the heartiest can survive.  Darwin was right, "Survival of the fittest"

Was thinking about what problems Matter is supposed to solve and one of the biggest ones is communication between different competing protocols. Does this mean that Matter will create a separate mesh so if you mix and match Zigbee and Z-Wave you don't have to build out both of those individual meshes to get reliable operation? Or do you really have to pick one or the other because it will still be too expensive to build out an entire house-wide mesh for each?

Or is Matter really just about getting different voice assistants to work together with no real value at the protocol level since your HA controller handles that integration already?

[MrBill]

4 minutes ago, upstatemike said:

Was thinking about what problems Matter is supposed to solve and one of the biggest ones is communication between different competing protocols. Does this mean that Matter will create a separate mesh so if you mix and match Zigbee and Z-Wave you don't have to build out both of those individual meshes to get reliable operation? Or do you really have to pick one or the other because it will still be too expensive to build out an entire house-wide mesh for each?

Or is Matter really just about getting different voice assistants to work together with no real value at the protocol level since your HA controller handles that integration already?

in the end, matter is just yet another protocol.  Will it survive the test of time?  who knows?

[upstatemike]

1 minute ago, MrBill said:

in the end, matter is just yet another protocol.  Will it survive the test of time?  who knows?

Agree but looking ahead I'm having trouble seeing what it has to offer that is needed before even worrying if it actually succeeds in delivering it or getting anybody to care. I can't picture myself doing something when Matter becomes available that I can't do today.

 

[Javi]

From my understanding it is a protocol which allow devices to be setup from a few protocols including bluetooth and WiFi (or WiFi frequency). For example a new Z-Wave device may have a bluetooth chip which allows configuration and control although it will still have the Z-Wave associations only available to/from other z-wave devices/controllers.  A similar WiFi device may have a way to group devices from the same MFG but have basic controls exposed to Matter.  These are just simple examples, there is much more needed at a lower level.  

Not all functionality may be available from the protocol, so you will still need the MFG's app or system which communicates with the base protocol (i.e. Z-Wave) to get all features.  Matter will allow a new user basic setup and control from any device such as GH or Alexa.

[lilyoyo1]

13 minutes ago, upstatemike said:

Agree but looking ahead I'm having trouble seeing what it has to offer that is needed before even worrying if it actually succeeds in delivering it or getting anybody to care. I can't picture myself doing something when Matter becomes available that I can't do today.

 

I don't think it matters overall to advanced controller users since controllers like the Isy can already accomplish the things they talk about. 

To me, it's being set up for mass users to easily adopt different devices and allow them some automation with their devices. In the end, you'd still be able to do more with the Isy.

As i always say: "these devices aren't made for us!"

Edited March 22, 2022 by lilyoyo1

[upstatemike]

14 minutes ago, lilyoyo1 said:

I don't think it matters overall to advanced controller users since controllers like the Isy can already accomplish the things they talk about. 

To me, it's being set up for mass users to easily adopt different devices and allow them some automation with their devices. In the end, you'd still be able to do more with the Isy.

As i always say: "these devices aren't made for us!"

I see that but I wonder if they are promising something they can't deliver. Matter might let you mix different voice assistants but if consumers have a vision of buying Zigbee and Thread and Z-Wave devices and having them all just work together without needing to worry about the underlying protocol then they may be in for a rude awakening. If they still have to buy enough devices in each protocol to make that mesh stable then they have to know something about each mesh and have to be more careful of what they choose regardless if it is all Matter compatible. 

Unless Matter will link devices such that the mesh of one protocol can route through the mesh of another to create a giant virtual mesh. If that is the vision they need to do a better job of conveying that.

Edited March 22, 2022 by upstatemike

[lilyoyo1]

4 hours ago, upstatemike said:

I see that but I wonder if they are promising something they can't deliver. Matter might let you mix different voice assistants but if consumers have a vision of buying Zigbee and Thread and Z-Wave devices and having them all just work together without needing to worry about the underlying protocol then they may be in for a rude awakening. If they still have to buy enough devices in each protocol to make that mesh stable then they have to know something about each mesh and have to be more careful of what they choose regardless if it is all Matter compatible. 

Unless Matter will link devices such that the mesh of one protocol can route through the mesh of another to create a giant virtual mesh. If that is the vision they need to do a better job of conveying that.

I don't think it's about end devices needing matter support unless they are directly connected to the internet like wifi switches are. 

When it comes to zwave and ZigBee, I would think one would need a matter supported bridge to talk to those type of devices. It's less about direct device to device connection than it is ecosystem to ecosystem. 

In essence, you can turn your zwave devices on with crapple devices which would then cause your Amazon routines to run your wifi and ZigBee based devices. 

This is why I think advanced users on here, HA, homeseer, etc. have less of a need for matter than the general public

[RPerrault]

i like the approach matter is undertaking - modular and leveraging existing standards - setting a framework for products to use that allows interoperability 

ip - addressing is done - standardized - assigned - ip does not care if the payload is insteon or a voice or a porn movie

packet structure is done - all the details of packet assembly/disassembly - reliability - delivery - integrity 

the physical media for delivery can be radio or electrical or light - i read the standard is expanding to include carrier pigeon next year

this proprietary mesh radio crap - i'm over it - though ip traffic could be delivered over it - but i admit, sonos does a good job with theirs - cellular is radio too - isps are delivering internet via 5g - wonder if that might extend to devices on a home network someday - if you are streaming 4k video over wifi, you need to rethink that

electrical can be powerline or ethernet cable - ir or fiber for light

dhcp works - let wifi choose the channel - add a scope if you need more addresses

if your isy is on your internet network - your insteon is already on the internet too

elon musk is not a god nor is apple satan

routers are not involved unless you are sending to something cloud based - such as alexa - i have not heard of a cloud based controller - the traffic is minimal and would not be the straw that broke the camel's back of your router

traffic between devices on your home network does not involve a router - the confusion here might be the word switch - a network switch is not a router nor a light switch 

there is a difference between delivering packets between devices and a broadcast - ethernet is not the old cdma ethernet of its birth

with ip, we have wireshark instead of the guessing game and the 'add more devices' advice is eliminated - as is the 'the carbon brushes in your mixer is trashing your powerline'

as i understand it, without a phase coupler and filter, insteon commands bridge phases in your home at the transformer - you are sending your traffic through all the homes serviced by that transformer - if it matters

insteon (or z-wave) - the terms we use - encompasses several functions - ip delivers packets - insteon does too but as referred to here, involves the command set and such too - decoupling those functions is a good thing - with the isy, i see the resources made available and have a common interface to communicate with them - even though they use disparate commands - if lutron wanted to provide a polisy node and hardware, they could - i imagine ud's job would be much easier if they had a common packet format, addressing and delivery mechanism

i can control the volume in my car by wagging my finger in the air - thought i needed a car that does that - i was wrong - its a parlor trick that no one on the planet needs 

same is true for home automation - i don't need to connect operation of my thermostat and sonos - the isy has made it possible to rethink what i want automation to do - i control the thermostats with alexa - routines added discrete meaning to 'the lights' - took a long time to realize that home automation is mostly about making it easy to do what you want to do - not guessing what someone wants to do and doing it for them - i don't need a straining for a bowel movement scene - the timing could vary wildly

can't say i enjoy driving my car - obsessing over the 42nd seat position setting and if the heated arm rest setting should be higher or lower than the seat back setting - far too focused on the technology rather than enjoying the drive - same is true for home automation - if you are turning on a ceiling fan 93 seconds after the heat turns off, that borders on wagging a finger parlor trick - just my opinion

and one more opinion - more of an observation - about me - i cringe when reading about the peasant class of home automation and the nobility of the high end - its something i can live with though

yes - i know i am obnoxious but a hecks lot more fun to drink beer with than a contrarian 

 

[kzboray]

@RPerrault I think it's important that we all agree Elon Musk is an alien trying to "Phone home." ?

Edited March 23, 2022 by kzboray

[stillwater]

@RPerrault If you like ip distribution take a look at Shelly devices and also the ESPhome library for Home Assistant.  The new Shelly pro units have wired ethernet for areas where wifi could be problematic.   The ESP32 provides adequate security and  built in wifi and bluetooth and will allow doing anything you want.   Of course there is a dearth of devices that have been UL approved and decently productized but all the building blocks exist.  I do think that the problems of the cheap ISP-provided Wifi access points and the  home wifi environment especially in town houses and apartments is a significant issue keeping serious players from using 2.4 GHZ wifi as the main rf net for home automation.     I suspect that before too long you will also see RP2040 based systems but ESP32 is plenty of power for most applications.  THe shellly Gen 2 devices provide significant peer-to-peer scripting and scenes without the need for a hub (but also MQTT for a hub based system) so their is lots of capability even without the Shelly cloud based app.   

(Not having any heatsinks in the hardware does cause issues though)

EspHome -- https://esphome.io/

 

 

 

 

[jlegault]

I walked away for a bit, took some deep breaths. That post was a primal scream, not unlike many others I've let out in this hobby over the last 20+ years. 

On 8/27/2021 at 12:19 PM, Michel Kohanim said:

@jlegault,

I completely understand. We have had the same discussions internally and it's one of the main reasons why most of our revenue comes from utility contracts and not home automation. I am not sure whether or not you have also noticed that most home automation hubs are slowly disappearing simply because of simple command/control solutions provided by HomeKit, Alexa, and Google Home. And, except for Zigbee/Z-Wave/UPB/X10/INSTEON, you don't really need a local hub. X10 is dead, UPB can be ignored, INSTEON is dying, and Z-Wave is already promoting ZIP (IP based Z-Wave) and Zigbee has become Matter. So, in the brave new world of the future - and excluding solutions for the rich and the famous - if all you seek is command/control and simple rules, then I don't see any point for an automation device including polisy. 

With the aforementioned out of the way, we have spent so much time trying to figure out how to support HomeKit. It's just way too expensive (>$100K and increasing by the day) with an unknown ROI. As mentioned above, most things are becoming IP and most things will support HomeKit. So, what's the point? 

Anyway, I am sorry that you feel this way but, unfortunately, that's the reality we live in now.

With kind regards,
Michel

Michel, I appreciate your response and I understand. I'm plinking away at my Polisy, and will be upgrading with the new comms module you just launched. 

 

On 8/31/2021 at 10:36 AM, Goose66 said:

Not that I want to be that guy that is so easily triggered, but just so you know WE DID REACH OUT TO ZODIAC (the owner of Jandy) and Michel and I had several email conversations with them regarding access to the iAqualink API, on multiple occassions, in fact. Ultimately they proved unfruitful because Zodiac didn't see enough value to them in working with UDI and their customers. I even pursued some backchannels to the tech company that implemented the web and app interfaces, but to no avail. And this is far from the only time that such overtures have been made to manufacturers. I commend Michel for continuing to try to wedge an open platform into an perpetually closed world of home automation.

I would also point out that all of us that continue to try and make the ISY work in as many ecosystems and devices as possible share your concerns - we talk about these issues all the time. You don't have a  lock on indignation here. I had a PC with an IBM voice-recognition board, an X10 Serial Interface (the old one before the CM11A), a VGA genlock, and an RF modulator for music and voice-based home control throughout my first house back in 1993. I often express the thought that we haven't really come all that far in the subsequent 28 years. 

The primary difference here, IMO, is while we're out there trying to open things up, you are (along with ranting online) giving up and turning yourself over to big tech, which has proven time and time again that they are only willing to "cooperate" as long as they maintain branding control of the primary user experience and financial control of the primary revenue streams. I've been down that road time and time again and won't be so easily fooled a 13th time.

As far as the iAqualink Node Server being a "toy" and doing nothing useful, I appreciate the fact that I can control my pool lights, spa, spillover, and sheers from Insteon keypads at multiple doors leading to my pool deck and have the states all stay in sync. My wife also enjoys that she can say "Alexa, turn on the spa for <name withheld>" and the ISY will not only put the Aqualink controller in spa mode and enable the spa heat, but will adjust the pool and spa lighting, as well as the landscape lighting according to the time of day AND play appropriate music through the outdoor speakers. These are the types of home automation scenarios that should be ubiquitous in 2020, IMO, and while Apple and Google are talking about taking us there soon with Matter, I like the fact that I've enjoyed this level of automation with my ISY for several years now. 

My comment was not fair. I can see how it is useful. in my case, I was looking for access to information shared on the internal bus of the RS system so I can monitor PH/ORP and chemical tank levels. The RS485->RS232 and homeseer software module I used to run (until a lightning strike) had full access to the internal bus and registered as a node on it. You can sniff the protocols on the RS485 bus to see pretty much everything and act like a member on it.  Buuuut not easy to run a cable into the house. The Wifi controller they have seems to run a very basic API, and then it has an emulator that runs their LCD interface and gives you access to everything visually - but I don't see how you could ever tokenize that or screen scrape it to create a programatic interface. In any case, I should not have called it a Toy. I was just frustrated because that use case was the tipping point that opened my wallet to get a Polisy and get home bridge running on a Pi. Jandy has zero reason to participate or make this easy unless you pay them.

In any case, play on gents! I appreciate all the comments.

[matapan]

I truly think it's comical reading these posts about the desire for simplicity and looking towards a new, unqualified protocol for salvation. How on earth would anyone want to jump on the bandwagon of a protocol for which there are no road tested, released products that have been widely adopted, where most of the user scenarios people expect to work have been deemed by the masses to be stable and usable?

I honestly think some people are glutton for punishment in somehow thinking the latest is the greatest. The race to the bleeding edge is solely the domain of true coders and designers that like to tinker and expect to fail often.

[asbril]

52 minutes ago, matapan said:

I truly think it's comical reading these posts about the desire for simplicity and looking towards a new, unqualified protocol for salvation. How on earth would anyone want to jump on the bandwagon of a protocol for which there are no road tested, released products that have been widely adopted, where most of the user scenarios people expect to work have been deemed by the masses to be stable and usable?

I honestly think some people are glutton for punishment in somehow thinking the latest is the greatest. The race to the bleeding edge is solely the domain of true coders and designers that like to tinker and expect to fail often.

I don't think that this is about jumping on board of a new technology and dumping what we have. The new ZMatter board adds Zigbee to Polisy / eisy and yes eventually it will include the Matter technology. It does not replace what we have but offer additional options. While there will likely be initial issues, I look forward to use devices that I currently can not. The exciting part is that we can continue to use the ISY flexibility and UD's superb customer service.

[matapan]

For a developer I can see jumping on board new technology, to check out the possibilities and develop something that couldn't be developed easily or at all using mature technology stacks. But to pine for compatibility with Matter or the next new protocol when no compelling use case exists right now to warrant full bore development with limited resources seems so illogical.

Personally, I'd wait for some compelling, realized use cases using Matter to come into existence before I would even think about it. I'm not a developer though so my perspective is really different from their perspective. They want to develop the next big thing, whatever that may be in Home Automation. Personally, I would be looking at some protocol that was ultra-reliable, deterministic and solid, not affected by wireless interference or power line noise, with hardware that is solid and very resistant to real world residential electrical conditions, available from multiple vendors who produce products that are fully compliant with a published standard, that is easy to debug failures with a system when they occured. It would support scenes in the way Insteon models scenes, which is very logical. This along with an easy to use, solid controller hub that could operate locally/independently and on the cloud.

Does this protocol exist now? I don't think so. Does Matter support these kind of user functional requirements? Who knows? That's up to developers to figure out. Hopefully not in the same way they figured out what a hack Z-Wave is.

[larryllix]

For a developer I can see jumping on board new technology, to check out the possibilities and develop something that couldn't be developed easily or at all using mature technology stacks. But to pine for compatibility with Matter or the next new protocol when no compelling use case exists right now to warrant full bore development with limited resources seems so illogical.

Personally, I'd wait for some compelling, realized use cases using Matter to come into existence before I would even think about it. I'm not a developer though so my perspective is really different from their perspective. They want to develop the next big thing, whatever that may be in Home Automation. Personally, I would be looking at some protocol that was ultra-reliable, deterministic and solid, not affected by wireless interference or power line noise, with hardware that is solid and very resistant to real world residential electrical conditions, available from multiple vendors who produce products that are fully compliant with a published standard, that is easy to debug failures with a system when they occured. It would support scenes in the way Insteon models scenes, which is very logical. This along with an easy to use, solid controller hub that could operate locally/independently and on the cloud.

Does this protocol exist now? I don't think so. Does Matter support these kind of user functional requirements? Who knows? That's up to developers to figure out. Hopefully not in the same way they figured out what a hack Z-Wave is.

You would need to go to a hardwired system and rip out half your walls to install it. The signals need to between devices somehow. The mediums are very few Rf, powerline, or hardwired.

Sent from my SM-G781W using Tapatalk

[matapan]

9 hours ago, asbril said:

I don't think that this is about jumping on board of a new technology and dumping what we have. The new ZMatter board adds Zigbee to Polisy / eisy and yes eventually it will include the Matter technology. It does not replace what we have but offer additional options. While there will likely be initial issues, I look forward to use devices that I currently can not. The exciting part is that we can continue to use the ISY flexibility and UD's superb customer service.

 

5 hours ago, larryllix said:

You would need to go to a hardwired system and rip out half your walls to install it. The signals need to between devices somehow. The mediums are very few Rf, powerline, or hardwired.

Sent from my SM-G781W using Tapatalk
 

You made my point. No such stack exists. The closest thing to an ideal stack is Lutron Radio Ra3. For my investment in Insteon, I can't justify the spend to move to that, and I'm perfectly satisfied with my current install with 95% dual band devices. 

So why pine for something that's vaporware? New PLM's are coming next year from Insteon. The company offers a repair service for existing units. There's also an eBay seller who repairs PLM's too.

Edited November 26, 2022 by matapan