Matter 1.2 – New device types and improvements

Probably the same reason video is always hard, there's 7 million codecs.

Might also be privacy

Came here to make the same comment. It seems like we are going to be waiting a while for video.

Does Homebridge not have a plug in for Nest? The one for Unifi cameras is just ok and takes forever to load an image. The doorbell notification is better than the camera experience.

Also I have no idea why I couldn't pair Matter devices using just my computer. Home Assistant wanted me to use a mobile app to do the pairing. No thanks. I shouldn't need to use a phone at home, phone is for outside, at home I use BIG computers and BIG screens to do everything.

Probably philosophical differences over the use of CODECs which require patent licensing. The hardware universe looks on these things very differently from the web one.

Unfortunately the options for HKSV doorbells is fairly limited. The Logitech circle view Doorbell looks like the best candidate but it has a spotty review history, with the biggest complaint being it breaking in direct sunlight.

I’m about to buy some cameras and I’m thinking of just buying Nest and using https://scrypted.app to bridge to HKSV.

Here you go: https://matter-smarthome.de/en/benefits/benefits-of-matter-4...

I'd guess that it's Space Grotesk with those extra bits added manually.

https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Space+Grotesk

First Matter vacuum gets my business! I just bought a Matter thermostat on a whim (incentives took the price down to $10) and I'm really impressed. It integrated into Home Assistant in seconds after I scanned a QR code and now the local control is instant and flawless. My last thermostat could only integrate using a really complicated cloud auth process and commands only made it all the way to wherever and back to my house some of the time, and never in under a few seconds.

Yes, Zigbee and ZWave have already done the work that Matter is attempting, but they both conflate the networking architecture with the API. We really do need a pure API that can work over WiFi, or anything else.

Matter was finalized fairly recently in hardware timescales. It's not better anywhere just yet, though I'm expecting we'll see quite a few expensive Matter devices start coming from the major players, then trickle down to the non-discerning customers as they get cheaper.

Have attempted to look at a lot of stuff but all revolve around their servers having to approve anything.

I remember a power strip that refused to work wothout internet because it could not communicate with server for auth and actions.

I have decided to go full diy and use relays and esp32 to power on devices and such.

Use raspberry pis with home assistant to do the work.

For some products it is a horsepower/memory problem, depending on the device you're building.

If you work for traditional thermostat company that happens to also build connected ones, adding Matter on top of other things required a lot of memory and microcontroller improvements that we just didn't have the space for previously. Especially when half your company does nothing but drive cost out of the BOM.

So, it's net new product.

Now a security panel on the other hand should be a little easier.. the modern ones are basically linux boxes.

> Is there a SIMPLE way to have a small python or go program act as a "switch" that shows up in Google home?

You can create virtual devices using Homebridge plug-ins. Here's an example: https://www.npmjs.com/package/homebridge-dummy

If you can do Typescript, matter.js makes it trivial to at least create a virtual matter device. Five minutes to clone the repo, build, run and pair with Google, Apple, Alexa, SmartThings, etc. The one caveat is certification. With Google you need to register as a developer so it allows an uncertified device. The others just give a warning.

See: https://github.com/project-chip/matter.js

What did you pick? I’m looking at the moment..

> My air conditioner just died, would be great if a matter compatible one became available.

What would you want the API to look like here?

I would be very conservative about opening up an API if I was a manufacturer. The reason being that there may be misuses by amateur coders that may increase wear on the product, and leading to increase in warranty claims.

I, as a manufacturer, would much rather prefer customers buy something like a Nest/Ecobee, etc. and manage that. Nest (and likely Ecobee) likely have smarts to not turn the AC on/off 30 times within 10 minutes, etc. Also, you benefit from other algorithms like "Time-to-Temp" (Nest), malfunctioning equipment alerts (Nest), etc. If you're in the US, many electricity utilities will give you a discount if you buy a smart thermostat, and then you can further gain $$ by enrolling in demand-response programs.

Yeah it’s like a collection of defined interfaces that share a common paradigm.

It makes perfect sense, otherwise you end up with devices like "light", "lamp" and "bulb" which could all have the same functionality, but all require different implementations because manufacturers could not communicate between themselves.

Good xkcd there, but Matter does seem to have industry acceptance at this point. Apple's support for it in Homekit was huge, and other companies have followed suit.

Competing standards will always exist, but buy-in is really key. You can have a worse standard and as long as you have buy-in, you can call it a success.