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.

[bigDvette]

Has anyone got a matter device paired.  I am looking forward to this because I am still using KPLs for scene controllers even though all my switches are now matter over thread. I was hoping to add the to Eisy and then put them in scenes to remove the automations I have built in Home Assistant to keep switch and KPL in sync.   I too am getting the error reading QR code message.

The 5.9.1 notes talk about wifi settings change, but I'm assuming it doesn't have to turn on the wifi radio as eisy is not acting as a TBR so it doesn't "need" a wifi signal like the TBR does to communicate with thread devices. 

[Guy Lavoie]

No reported Matter pairing yet (or if someone did, they're so excited that they forgot to come and tell us!)

The mention of wifi settings change was within the eisy itself, to get it working with Matter. I'm theorizing here, but with a controller like the eisy having both hardwired and wifi connectivity, the vast majority of those using it hardwired will already have a wifi router in their setup (who doesn't have wifi at home now?). Remains the Thread support: Some (most?) will probably have a border router somewhere. If not, the ZMatter dongle should provide that capability, at least between the eisy and devices. Most of us will likely get the dongle anyways because it's the only way to get Zigbee. In theory, the eisy could also act as a border router, device to device. Matter is IPv6 whether it's wifi or Thread, so it's a simple packet forwarding function. Maybe there will be a configuration checkbox to turn on routing.

[bigDvette]

I’m pretty up on all the networking requirements for matter. I don’t think the matter dongle can work as a thread border router given the requirement to use thread is that you have to have a border router in the 5.9.1 release notes. My real reason for wanting to know if anybody’s gotten a device set up is because there’s no mention of whether or not the Zmatter / EISY need to be on the same vlan as the thread border router. With Home Assistant I had to make sure that the matter server was in the same vlan as the thread Apple border router.  My assumption is the EISY is running its own matter server much like Home Assistant has to run its own matter server to provision devices.  so far I haven’t been able to get matter servers talking to one other except in the same vlan and at the moment my EISY is not in the same vlan.  United States.

I’m kind of hoping I can use one of the Wi-Fi connections and stick the Wi-Fi adapter in the vlan of the matter servers instead of having to move the EISY to that vlan but there’s no information on how any of the networking works and a flat network simply doesn’t cut it with all these IOT devices

[Guy Lavoie]

Well don't forget that 5.9.1 is a beta release for Matter support, and hasn't worked for users yet. You'll also notice that the ZMatter dongle isn't even mentioned yet in the release notes. So the network requirements will likely change as the Matter support evolves. We'll just need to be patient.

In the meantime, tell us a bit about your Matter devices, notably the Thread switches. What brand and model are they? How is the reliability? Did you migrate from another smart switch type, and reasons that motivated the choice. Matter is still new and we need to learn from other's experiences.

 

[bigDvette]

I am using the Inovelli White Switches 2-1 dimmer, fan module, canopy and waiting on the on/off w/humidity to come out.

I detailed in another post my issues with the tesla powerwall and insteon switches / communication issues.  I've been on insteon for like 20 years (maybe little less) and it has been great, but was showing it's age.  I took the opportunity to move to what I assume will be the next generation to be around a while and decided to incur the pain of matter/thread. 

I am doing thread only if I can.  I'm currently using some wifi for specific applications.  I haven't replace some of my on/off switches, none of my leak sensors and have kept my keypad lincs..  Waiting for inovelli on/off with humidity for bathrooms, inovelli has an upcoming scene controller and since I'm ubiquity I may use their upcoming product release for leak sensors.  I use elk for alarm panel, but may transition to ubiquity protect for alarm at some point.

I currently would like to commission my matter light switches that are linked to insteon keypadlincs to manage the syncing of those buttons in eisy instead of home assistant automations and was trying to see how far I could take that, but it is working fine in HA.

https://community.inovelli.com/t/my-journey-from-insteon-to-inovelli-and-matter-thread/18613

[737simguy]

21 minutes ago, bigDvette said:

I am using the Inovelli White Switches 2-1 dimmer, fan module, canopy and waiting on the on/off w/humidity to come out.

I detailed in another post my issues with the tesla powerwall and insteon switches / communication issues.  I've been on insteon for like 20 years (maybe little less) and it has been great, but was showing it's age.  I took the opportunity to move to what I assume will be the next generation to be around a while and decided to incur the pain of matter/thread. 

I am doing thread only if I can.  I'm currently using some wifi for specific applications.  I haven't replace some of my on/off switches, none of my leak sensors and have kept my keypad lincs..  Waiting for inovelli on/off with humidity for bathrooms, inovelli has an upcoming scene controller and since I'm ubiquity I may use their upcoming product release for leak sensors.  I use elk for alarm panel, but may transition to ubiquity protect for alarm at some point.

I currently would like to commission my matter light switches that are linked to insteon keypadlincs to manage the syncing of those buttons in eisy instead of home assistant automations and was trying to see how far I could take that, but it is working fine in HA.

https://community.inovelli.com/t/my-journey-from-insteon-to-inovelli-and-matter-thread/18613

Oh my. After reading your Inovelli post I am feeling wholly inadequate!  Wow. Way out of my league and very impressive. I think I’ll just be content with my 25 Insteon devices and Nest thermostats LOL. Matter is so intriguing I’d love to tinker with it but beginning to wonder if it will all be way over my head. 
 

Great post, thank you!

[Guy Lavoie]

I just read through your linked post. Wow...looks like lots of early adopter issues cropped up, but you stuck with it! Firmware updates, etc are the bane of early use of new technologies. But it looks like perseverance paid off, and I'm happy for you. The vlan thing is particularly interesting, and sharing your experience will certainly be helpful to others. I'm sure Matter will turn out to be great, but still needs time to get there.

Your loose neutral issue in your Powerwall thread can certainly be the cause of many problems, and not just noise. If the two phases of your panel aren't well balanced, it means the many electrical appliances might have experienced high or low voltage spikes. Problems might crop up later. 

Thanks for sharing your experience.

[bigDvette]

8 minutes ago, Guy Lavoie said:

I just read through your linked post. Wow...looks like lots of early adopter issues cropped up, but you stuck with it! Firmware updates, etc are the bane of early use of new technologies. But it looks like perseverance paid off, and I'm happy for you. The vlan thing is particularly interesting, and sharing your experience will certainly be helpful to others. I'm sure Matter will turn out to be great, but still needs time to get there.

Your loose neutral issue in your Powerwall thread can certainly be the cause of many problems, and not just noise. If the two phases of your panel aren't well balanced, it means the many electrical appliances might have experienced high or low voltage spikes. Problems might crop up later. 

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Oh, I had problems. 1 of my soft starts on my AC units died and some other stuff not to mention the thousands spent replacing switches and that's before all the time (which honestly, I enjoy problem solving so yeah).  I have a claim with Tesla.

[MGustin]

For what its worth this is what I got from support when I opened a ticket 9 days ago.

We are working on a couple of issues. 

The "rendezvous" error in UD Mobile is firmware related for some, but not all, users and we hope to have a new build in the next week. 

The "Could not write characteristic" error is being encountered for all users on iOS devices for Matter BLE Wi-Fi commissioning. iOS is blocking communication to Bluetooth for a characteristic (UUID) used by Matter devices. We are looking into the issue with Apple. So, currently BLE commissioning for Matter devices from an iOS device will not work, but Matter should work for IP, Thread, and previously commissioned WiFi devices.

[oberkc]

From everything on this forum that I have read, it seems to me that the problems are more widespread than this response suggests.  Do you suppose that they don't yet recognize the problems, or that there are steps that we are all missing?

[737simguy]

16 minutes ago, oberkc said:

From everything on this forum that I have read, it seems to me that the problems are more widespread than this response suggests.  Do you suppose that they don't yet recognize the problems, or that there are steps that we are all missing?

IMO, after reading as many of the posts in this forum as possible, Matter has become more of a nightmare to the developers than they expected but they are hard at work to make it compatible with eisy/isy. I don’t mind the wait personally and I am confident they know of the issues. My 2c. 

[oberkc]

1 hour ago, 737simguy said:

I am confident they know of the issues.

I hope you are correct.  It is statement like below that gives me concern:

12 hours ago, MGustin said:

but Matter should work for IP, Thread, and previously commissioned WiFi devices.