About Matter buttons: Release events, Labels, Icons

[mocelet]

Updated in Feb 2026: Removed no longer relevant bits, added request about more missing events and icons.

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 a long_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 12, there are certified devices with 8. 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.

Mind button components already have a “label” field in the profile (the ID can still be “button6” but it will display what the label says), the problem is that the label cannot be changed by the user or the driver.

Add support for initial press and short release

For buttons with double press, the normal “Pressed” button action in SmartThings can have a noticeable delay because it waits for a potential double press. That’s why the new IKEA buttons in stock drivers feel “slow” when toggling a light compared to the older Zigbee ones that did not support double press.

Custom drivers can expose the early events that don’t wait to confirm the number of presses but the button capability lacks proper names and using “Swipe Up” for the short release is not a good user experience. Plus, would be better not needing a custom driver, some platforms expose those events without needing to tinker.

Add support to change icons

While you don’t usually interact with the button UI except to set automations, given pretty much every device type in SmartThings has different icons to choose from, why can’t button icons be changed? Would be nice to provide icons with different number of buttons and shapes instead of the boring 8-button icon that looks like a TV remote.

[Andreas_Roedl]

BTW:

[mocelet]

Looks like this didn’t get much traction Tagging @nayelyz in case she’s able to submit the request / questions.

[nayelyz (SmartThings Developer Support)]

Hi, @mocelet

Thanks for tagging me. I shared this with the engineering team and will see if there’s anything else we can do to provide more awareness about it.

[SeanTek (Sean)]

Please add support for long press release in Matter! It’s crucial for many smart home automations, most specifically gradual dimming of lights!

[mocelet]

This morning saw a PR to explicitly change the icons and labels of the new IKEA buttons because we still cannot change them manually. Looks like cake days are to talk about buttons!

@nayelyz

Thanks for tagging me. I shared this with the engineering team and will see if there’s anything else we can do to provide more awareness about it.

Hi I’ve updated the first post to make it more relevant for 2026. To summarize the requests:

• Add the missing Matter events to the button capability: long_release, short_release and initial_press. They would be quite helpful for start/stop automations as well as minimize latency in buttons with double press when you just want to quickly toggle a light (like the new IKEA buttons).
• Allow changing the device icon and editing the labels of each button.