Hi
I’m a little bit lost. I’m new to smart home, but I understood Matter seems to be the best choice for universality. However I don’t understand how hub works. At first, I was thinking to use Google Home as main app but then realize it missing some possibilities and I now switched to SmartThings.
I bought first a SwitchBot Hub 2 since it have good reviews and seems quite useful. But I disenchant when I realize I couldn’t really add devices from other brands. But the Hub is visible in both Home and ST.
So then, I wanted to add a door lock. After many searches, I choose Aqara U200 which is matter device. At the same time I ordered a Aqara presence detector FP2 (also Matter). So since I need a hub to add those things, I went for Google TV streamer, since I needed anyway to replace my old chromecast. It’s supposed to be a Matter/Thread hub. Works as expected in Home, I add it and then add the FP2. But again, disillusion when I wanted to add it to ST. It asks a hub, but I guess because I’m unable to get GTV into ST, the secondary device is impossible to add.
So my questions are : why hubs are not really hubs? What I’m missing? Does Matter was really the best choice?
I checked for Aeotec hub, but it seems totally impossible to buy, from any local shop or from Amazon (sold out everywhere). I should import it from US, but it will cost a leg and a arm… I saw some used SmartThings hub v3 on Marketplace, is it worth it?
Thanks
Mélanie
Matter is simply a common smart home language that allows Matter certified devices to be able to communicate with Matter certified ecosystems. The transports for Matter are currently Wi-Fi, Thread Mesh, and Bridge (other smart home protocols like Zigbee appear as Matter devices).
In each ecosystem, you need two things in order to commission a Matter device; a commissioner and a controller. The commissioner is typically the smart home app for an ecosystem like the ST App, the Alexa app, Google Home app, etc. The controller is a smart home hub like a ST v2/v3/Aeotec/Appliance/ST Station hub, an Amazon Echo device, a Google Home hub etc. For Matter over Thread devices, there must be a Thread Border Router (TBR) that provides the communication path from the Thread mesh network to Wi-Fi. For ST, v3/Aeotec/Appliance/ST Station hub provides TBR functionality.
So to use a Matter device in multi-admin mode in multiple ecosystems, you must have both the commissioner and the controller which means you need whatever hub/device provides that functionality in their ecosystem. You can’t use the commissioner from one ecosystem with the controller of another and vice versa. So you can’t use ST to commission a Matter device to a Google Home hub.
If you don’t need Z-Wave support, the ST Station is a more cost-effective solution than a v3 or Aeotec hub. There is a brand new ST Station on eBay for $45 and others at prices slightly higher than that. It’s my only ST hub in one of my locations and my Matter-enabled hub in another which has a ST Wi-Fi hub that doesn’t support Matter.
You can bid on a used V3 hub at shopgoodwill.com. They usually go for a lot less than a new Aeotec hub. There is a small probability you might get a bad one, but it is worth the chance.