Now that buttons in Matter are relatively standard when it comes to events (most use the Switch cluster) and the Matter driver is quite generic and detects the capabilities of each button, some enhancements would be welcome.
Add support for long press release
Some Matter buttons support long-press and release events. Long-press is mapped to “Held” as we all know, but the release event is not exposed even if Matter reports it.
Also, the button production capability has never included a release event, that’s why some Zigbee custom drivers use “Toggled up” as event to map a long press release. Maybe it’s time to add the “released” action .
The release event is useful for any automation of the type start / stop, so you start with Held and stop with Release.
A way for users to label button components
A bridged IKEA symfonisk should have 7 buttons, the Third Reality keyboard has 10. It’s almost impossible to remember which one is button6 when creating or reviewing automations or the quick actions in the button view.
Right now the only way to label buttons is creating a custom driver with a new profile for the specific model, which seems overkill. Also, can the “main” component be labeled?
Farewell to the Main component convention?
In pre-Matter drivers there was this convention where “main” component was a catch-all for multi-component buttons and then each button would have its own component like button1, button2, etc. I always found it confusing but was useful in some scenarios.
In Matter drivers there is no longer main, button1, button2…, it is just main and button2, button3, etc. So, “main” is no longer a catch-all that will trigger with any button press, it is just the first button.
Is SmartThings officially breaking away from the years old “main” convention in buttons?