Tried these Matter bulbs. No love.

[737simguy]

Tried connecting these today via UD Mobile 1.2.2 and eisy 5.9.1 using the scan barcode  technique but got the attached error. 
 

 

[larryllix]

Does V5.9.1 have support for that bulb yet?

[Guy Lavoie]

2 hours ago, larryllix said:

Does V5.9.1 have support for that bulb yet?

To my knowledge (from what I've read on the forum since the release of 5.9.1) no one has successfully added a Matter device yet. We all get that kind of error when reading the QR code. I have these two test subjects on hand myself: the Cync bulb is Matter over wifi, the Nanoloeaf is Matter over thread. They both work with their phone apps (Nanoleaf over blutooth) For the Thread bulb, I don't have a border router yet (keeping an eye open for a deal on a used 4th gen. Amazon Echo) though I would think that eventually, the ZMatter dongle should be able to do that directly.

 

[oberkc]

I have the same two devices, plus two thread border routers (echo hub and google nest hub 2nd gen).  No luck so far.  Same, or similar, errors, depending on how I try to add it.  They both add fine to google and Alexa, and both can be shared between the two and with apple HomeKit.

 

[larryllix]

I have a Govee LED curtain light set and it supports BT, WiFi, and Matter.

Alexa sets up with it automatically when permitted. That is over WiFi via the Alexa server through my fibre router and Wifi.

Router is a few years old and belongs to the ISP. Just the same old 2.4GHz WiFi AFAICT.  Nothing special about this router so I don't understand what the big deal about Matter is.

[oberkc]

9 hours ago, larryllix said:

so I don't understand what the big deal about Matter is.

Perhaps it is no big deal.  Since hearing about it and the possibility of ISY support, I was excited about the possibility that some of these alexa/homekit/google devices would work at a local level (no cloud reliance), not require the use of inceasingly limited wifi bandwidth, and the possibility that these various matter hubs (including the ISY) would expose their respective devices to the various other hubs and border routers….one happy family…all at the local network level.

I do have one of those Brilliant switches.  At one point, they were promising matter support but I suspect they are out of business at this point.  I was hopeful that the promises of matter would ultimately bring exposure of ISY devices to he brillianr switch.  Probably not going to happen now.

yes, much of this capability is available with node servers and portal, but this remains too dependent on the cloud for my preferences.  

[Guy Lavoie]

7 hours ago, oberkc said:

yes, much of this capability is available with node servers and portal, but this remains too dependent on the cloud for my preferences.  

That's the whole reason why we (UDI controller users) are interested in Matter: because it's the first industry lead effort in interoperability. Go look at the dozens of smart bulb products available. They all boast "Works with Alexa" and "Works with Google Home". They all show a free phone app that you need to create an account for. But count how many of those have an open, local API? How many can you include into a scene command launched locally by your controller? Very few.

Right now, Matter compatible products are rare. But give it a year or two and they should become as common as those Alexa compatible products. Many smart products are already IP compatible, so they just need new software. The Hue hub is a good example of acquired Matter compatibility. Having Matter compatibility in our favorite controller now gives us futureproofing.

[larryllix]

Where is the local API? 

I haven't seen anybody that even knows what Matter is, let alone why we would need a new piece of hardware to broadcast a protocol over WiFi hardware that is already built into every router EISY is attached to.

From what I can deduce, Matter is just a standardized way of interrogating a device to find out what it is, and what parameters it will accept. That sounds like a huge database to handle every style of device  that can be thrown at the EISY.

 

However, I detect the same secrecy for Matter, no different than every other protocol that was destined to fail because the manufacturer always tried to keep it a secret, or was too lazy to write an API document, that programmers could understand and support their products. "Total control...end to end" (we won't mention the EU threat of banning that one!   )

I sure hope I am wrong in some of these assumptions.

[Guy Lavoie]

2 hours ago, larryllix said:

Where is the local API? 

I haven't seen anybody that even knows what Matter is, let alone why we would need a new piece of hardware to broadcast a protocol over WiFi hardware that is already built into every router EISY is attached to.

From what I can deduce, Matter is just a standardized way of interrogating a device to find out what it is, and what parameters it will accept. That sounds like a huge database to handle every style of device  that can be thrown at the EISY.

 

However, I detect the same secrecy for Matter, no different than every other protocol that was destined to fail because the manufacturer always tried to keep it a secret, or was too lazy to write an API document, that programmers could understand and support their products. "Total control...end to end" (we won't mention the EU threat of banning that one!   )

I sure hope I am wrong in some of these assumptions.

You can find Matter command stuff here:

https://community.silabs.com/s/article/Implementing-custom-commands-for-the-Matter-CLI?language=en_US

And no, we don't necessarily need new hardware to send and receive commands. Matter is implemented using IPv6 over hardwired, wifi, or Zigbee physical layers. No new physical layer has been introduced along with Matter.

Yes, it is a standardized way of interrogating a device to find out what it is, and what parameters it will accept. That's the whole attraction. Up until recently, each protocol had it's own, often proprietary way of doing things. Serial bytes to a PLM to send Insteon, various command implementations sending data over Zigbee and Zwave. Raw bytes to an IP port to send data to various hubs. Then things started to use more similar network layer implementations to save on costs, like HTTP for Venstar and Ecobee thermostats, Hue hubs, etc. Various forms of security too. The physical layers also become more common (like Zigbee and Zwave), but the commands sent across these physical layers were still proper to each device, and often undocumented.

Then in 2019 (from the wikipedia article on Matter):

In December 2019, Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung SmartThings and the Zigbee Alliance announced the collaboration and formation of the working group of Project Connected Home over IP. The goal of the project is to simplify development for smart home product brands and manufacturers while increasing the compatibility of the products for consumers. 

Finally, lets get our stuff to talk to each other! The idea was to create a high level API that allowed common commands to be sent to each other's platforms. It might not implement every single feature, but each one could decide what to allow (expose) to be done by "foreign" controllers. That way they could still compete on finer exclusive features. For example allow lights to be turned on and off, dimmed, and set to a color. But things like animation, scenes etc could be restricted to the native platform. We often see that in product feature descriptions.

Now with a controller like the eisy, UDI does the implementation of the commands needed for each protocol. They first did Insteon and X10, then added Zwave, then Zigbee, and now Matter. For us users, it always comes down to the same simple command, such as

Turn <device node name> On

That's what we pay them to do for us 😀

[larryllix]

Looks like my estimation was fairly accurate.

However, I don't find any API description document on that website, mostly only sales info for their silabs chip. There seems to be some discussion of some code but no actual code or links to anything.

Am I missing something?

[Guy Lavoie]

Wikipedia has some links, and describes the evolution of the standard from it's beginnings. There is a link to github for developers

https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip

There is a certification process, etc. Read up on Matter here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_(standard)

For most of us here (as UDI users), having Matter compatible node devices is almost secondary, as we'll already have our systems established around one or more existing technologies, whether it be Insteon, Zwave, etc. Matter isn't really introducing any new topologies. Again, the appeal of Matter is interoperability of existing systems. If you have both Google Home and Amazon Alexa devices, you'll be able to get them communicating more easily, without reverse engineering, plugins, etc. You'll also notice that UDI's announcement mentions "HomeKit plumbing". That must be linked to the addition of Matter support. Apple has always been the outlier. The fact that they're part of the group that got together to create Matter will only help in making home automation more consumer friendly and widespread.