Does Matter still Matter?

[GTench]

I was originally quite interested in Matter when it was first announced but right now for me anyway not sure how relevant it is anymore

Eisy with all its plugins have allowed me to integrate my various hardware together the way I always wanted to and was hoping to be able to do with Matter

 I am wondering what Matter can add to things that I cannot already or might want to do and what others feel about this

[paulbates]

There is focus from Home Automation manufacturers and integrators, so the idea is a lot of choice and ideally competitive prices. If your goal is automating home appliances beyond what they can do themselves, there could be value.

Given where I started and where I'm at, matter doesn't help me currently. A combination of Insteon with its proprietary RF standard, and Yolink for long range sensors (proprietary standard) gets me what I need. To cover what I'm doing with Insteon/Yolink, I would have to create a larger wifi mesh in my house; don't really want or need to do that. I get the temps of my freezers/fridges with yolink sensors.

Now my saying it "I don't matter" or "I'm anti-matter"

[sjenkins]

I think I’d agree with you both. I am also in the Insteon, YoLink camp; with some plugins to do special things like blinds, plus some homemade esp32’s using mqtt for fun. My recent poor, few year, experience with zwave does not help, just ripped out all but one or two irrelevant devices. Just read another article of the fragmentation of Matter. Happy it exists as a choice but my needs are met elsewhere. “Matter doesn’t matter to me!”

 

[lilyoyo1]

Matter never mattered for me. Im not interested in trying to use a multitude of different devices in my home when I can use a few choice systems that work exceptionally well together. 

The way things are right now with Matter; I am reminded of all the posts when it was first announced about how it was the protocol that would end fragmentation....only to end up with another fragmented confusing mess of a system. 

[brians]

Well it definitely doesn’t “matter” if you are using an EISY or Polisy, because it’s not available yet!

For those using other automation platforms it is working for quite a while, but there is not much incentive to use over other products right now.

I only have a two Matter devices in my Home Assistant which are wiz wifi rgb bulbs - I use them as an experiment and they work ok but I prefer to stay away from wifi devices like that where needs some app to setup and maintain. Thread would be more interesting to me but I can’t bring myself to spend $ on a thread bulb or any other device and go down that rabbit hole just to test. I would rather just get more zigbee Hue bulbs.

 

[larryllix]

So far I prefer WiFi devices. WiFi is continually being expanded and improved and well supported with hardware and software in so many places.

THe only thing I have noticed is with the MagicHome/LEDenet bulbs that they can have more problems when mounted upside down.

WiFi signals are polarity sensitive and WiFi bulbs may not function properly when mounted upside down.

Just kidding..
... bulbs mounted with their heat sources underneath their electronics usually have shorter lives. I have had a few that began acting strangely and had to be replaced over the last 3-4 years. However, my dozen or so other WiFi bulbs, mounted with electronics down have never had problems for about 4-5 years now.
And...you require a router that is not twenty or thirty years old and not able to handle many devices (my ASUS router drove me around the bend for 3 years not randomly disconnecting from random bulbs and other devices)

[CoolToys]

Having just installed several Grayywind blinds from Amazon, I ordered the last two with the new matter motor hoping that my eisy would be able to control them and here I am looking for answers and sharing my expensive education.

I will start this by saying I think a connected home is not a "smart home".  To me a smart home must be able to operate autonomously without internet access.  I started this journey with an HAI Omni, moved to  Pro, Pro II then ISY/Elk.

Matter became very interesting to me because of the idea that it can operate autonomously within the internal network.  If you have power, the stuff works.  I wasn't yet ready to call Tesla and order crazy expensive batteries, but I was thinking about it.

Below is the list of my trials and errors and additional purchases to make the matter enabled blinds work.  

Basic setup at the beginning. 

UDI ISY 994 Pro with 19 Insteon switches, 10 Keypads, 8 outlets, one outdoor dongle outlet and 2 switch link i/o's.  It was controlled with about 30 programs and three variables.  It all worked quite well 99% of the time.   

Insteon Hub for Alexa integration.  I got the hub because the "kit" at Costco was a bargain when I wanted to add some switches.

House is wired Cat6 with a two tier mesh commercial WiFi 6 system, IP V6 active for internal devices. Essentially a semi-smart and connected home.

Insteon Goes On Hiatus

One of the zones failed on my whole house A-bus system and the parts were near impossible to get so I acquired an Alexa Echo.   It had the Insteon skill so I gave up a bit of privacy for voice control and to see what all the noise was really about.

Another A-bus zone failed so along came an Echo Show 8.  My wife liked it so much it moved to her office and along came a Show 15.  

When my insteon hub and Alexa stopped communicating, during the Insteon hiatus period, I decided to upgrade to the eisy and get the zwave/zigbee/matter module.  Michel is laughing because I didn't even read the antenna's so I couldn't get anything to work and drove him nuts for a bit, but he was always there.

After some personal challenges with change, migrating from the ELK module in the ISY to the ELK node for the eisy, my house returned to the same state it was, well sort of.

Magically my Lorex camera system decided to play nice one day with Alexa and the Echo show became a super screen ring type device for us.  The 15" screen in the kitchen showing the Ring Style Lorex doorbell cam was cool.

Privacy Blinds?

We live on the California coast and our electric rates are about the same as our gas prices and mountains.  We decided to get Greywind Zigbee ready blinds to block the sun downstairs and keep the house cool without A/C.  I had hoped they would work with the eisy zigbee but no such luck.  I didn't bother to read that it was still in the works.  I have added the blinds to the zigbee wishlist.

The blinds were very easy to configure with the Alexa app on my iPhone. They worked great and have schedules.  What they lack is that rules and logic that UDI magic brings.  The eisy found the blinds when "add zigbee device" was selected but they are blank and have no functions.  So close.

Since my wife liked the blinds so much we ordered three more for the dining room.  This time I added the new "matter motor".  Amazon says they will arrive pre-configured for your system.  Hooey.  

Amazon added matter thread to all echos in a recent update but did NOT include a thread controller (some call it a hub) which is required to connect matter devices to echo.  When I tried to connect the Alexa app kept asking for a "network key".  After three hours of foul language I gave up to watch a little mindless programming on the big screen.   When I turned on the TV the Apple TV asked me to add "Smart Blinds" to my system.  So I did and boom, Apple home had full control of the blinds.  Alexa and eisy did not.  

Does Matter actually Matter?

A lot more research into this little goofy idea that someone thinks matters, I learned that part of it runs on WiFI ip V6 and the same frequency as Zigbee.  At first I thought @larryllix would appreciate it.  But then three different network sniffers latter to figure our who was broadcasting _matter protocol and _mattertcp, his point was well taken.  

After complaining to Graywind, they replied that I had a 4th Gen Echo, not an Echo (4th Gen).  I needed an Echo (4th gen) with a built in matter hub.  It turned out my Apple TV had a matter hub already and I didn't know it.  So after a lot more reading I bought an Echo (4th gen), the goofy looking ball.

Once I connected the blinds to the Alexa Matter Controller via the included Alexa Border Router.  The border router communicates using my Alexa App and the , I could add the blinds to the Alexa routines. It was not the FFS (Frustration Free Setup) Amazon promised though.  At the end the Alexa integration was much better than Apple Home but still not eisy logic.  

On the Apple Home App, the blinds stopped responding.  A lot of matter reading lead me to believe I could connect the Apple TV 4k and the Alexa Hub via matter controllers and all would be right with the world.  At least in my semi smart home.  So far that isn't true.

It's a Matter of Bridges

In theory a Matter Bridge can combine my two "ecosystems".  One is Apple, the other Amazon.  Hopefully soon one will be eisy.  

Old documentation from Apple Home and Alexa show menu's to connect to other matter networks as long as they are on the same IP v6 network before the IP router.  Essentially everything in my house should talk.  Those menu's are gone and I can confirm that the Apple Home can no longer control any of the blinds and only Alexa can control them all.

Some Cool Things.

Network traffic shows that both Apple and Alexa preserve your privacy and don't send commands out unless you use voice commands. That's an interesting conversation alone.

HomeBridge to the rescue?

In order to get the Alexa and Apple ecosystems on Matter Thread Networks to play nice I added Homebridge to a Mac in the house.  The problem is that like Alexa or Siri voice control home bridge has some out of network traffic so I uninstalled it.

Maybe once the Matter Controller is activated on the UDI ZWave/Zigbee/Matter Module, it will include a matter bridge so we can use Apple and Google and Amazon instead of Apple or Google or Amazon.

 

Edited May 4 by CoolToys
HomeKit didn't work perfect so removed it.

[Xathros]

On 4/8/2024 at 1:42 PM, GTench said:

I was originally quite interested in Matter when it was first announced but right now for me anyway not sure how relevant it is anymore

Eisy with all its plugins have allowed me to integrate my various hardware together the way I always wanted to and was hoping to be able to do with Matter

 I am wondering what Matter can add to things that I cannot already or might want to do and what others feel about this

I’m in a good place with eISY and PG3x linking Kasa,Yolink,AmbientWeather and a bunch of other things with my Insteon gear.  Alexa is able to operate almost everything.  I’ve also set up homebridge to get Siri control working but that still leaves something to be desired.  My hope is that Matter will unify things so that I can control and query things equally with Alexa, Siri or Google without the need for things like homebridge.  Some of my automations are via Alexa routines or in Apple home rather than eISY programs. Ideally I’d have all of the logic on the eISY and not have to depend on internet access or worry about Amazon breaking their stuff on a regular basis.

I have a few Matter capable Kasa devices that Apple HomeKit found and adopted without much effort on my part. I control them via Kasa poly on the eISY for the most part.

-Xathros

Edited May 4 by Xathros
Fix typos and add some context.

[CoolToys]

@xanthros, I too hope that matter is the great unifier, but in order to really give it some horsepower it needs to be able to be controlled by eisy.  The idea that matter can remain autonomous fits with my definition of a smart home that Amazon, Google and Apple want to break.

An Update Thanks to Eve

All of the Graywind matter blinds are now working with Alexa and HomeKit. The trick was that I needed two mobile devices.  One to run the Alexa app and get the code to allow another app to connect.  The second to run HomeKit and add the codes. I tried it on my iPhone and switching between the apps killed the linking, maybe it hijacks the bluetooth signal?  Anyway one step closer.  

It takes both Alexa routines and HomeKit actions to get the blinds to almost do everything I want automatically.  I could just add them to existing programs for the house if the eisy Matter module worked, but all good things take time.