Matter - smart home connectivity standard (formerly Project CHIP)

Short answer: $1550.

Long answer: https://store.bigassfans.com/en_us/es62-black

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https://www.eetimes.eu/a-matter-of-time/

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Looks interesting:

It’s a wrapper around what you can already get from the official matter source. Doesn’t look fully baked yet. :thinking:

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It seems to show me I have 3 thread networks, SmartThings, Amazon and Google and that Apple is using the Google thread network. Weird?

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Tuohy has been doing great industry analysis on matter issues, and this is a good article, but this time I think she failed to bubble up the basic problem with the CSA.

It’s this (from the article)

As with all Matter features, enhanced multi-admin is optional, so ecosystems don’t have to adopt it.

From the beginning, the CSA has approached the matter logo certification process from the industry perspective rather than from the consumer perspective.

Seeing the matter logo on a device doesn’t tell you anything at all about what it’s going to do when you bring it home. Seriously. Doesn’t even have the same kind of minimum standards that Zwave does and I previously thought those were as minimum as you could get in A network communications protocol. :thinking:

What it does tell you is that whatever communications this particular device does send using matter will meet the matter specification for that kind of communications.

It doesn’t tell you if a “matter controller“ works with matter certified lightbulbs or locks or energy reporting smart plugs.

It just tells you that if it does work with a particular matter certified device, it will do so in the way that matter specifies. But not necessarily with all of the features that matter specifies.

That’s good from an engineering standpoint, but it’s almost useless from a consumer standpoint.

You still have to do a huge amount of pre-purchase research on any individual device to figure out if it’s going to do what you need done at your house.

And in spite of the optimistic headline, I don’t see anything in the matter 1.4 specification that’s going to change that, because like the passage I just quoted, it’s all still voluntary.

You could be holding two lightbulbs with identical product descriptions, each with a matter logo, but when you hook them up at home, they have very different feature implementations. :rage:

This is NOT what matter was supposed to be.

So do I like the new “fabric sync“ architecture? Sure.

Do I like the fact that you still won’t have any idea which platforms will support which features of it? Or when? I do not. :bomb:

This is just going to be one more thing that customers have to figure out the details of for every device they want to add to their particular setup.

Annoying.

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Exactly. Which is why, at the moment, it is unlikely to become the mass-market concept it should be. If you don’t know this problem exists, people will just buy stuff and then find it doesn’t do what they thought it would. That’s for those who had any idea about Matter at all. And if you do know this problem exists, it is almost impossible for a normal person who does not want to spend a ton of time researching and asking on forums to find out what they need to know. At some time in the future, this might start working properly. Until then, I am sticking with Zigbee and Smartthings.

Yep, what the CSA seems to have failed to do is specify a minimum standard of functionality for each device type in the specification.

But even at that, you get situations like I saw the other day where ST supports Matter 1.3, but the Matter device connecting to the hub, clearly didn’t support that version so there was functionality not exposed by the device even though it’s “Matter certified”.

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From the article:

It’s been two long years since the launch of Matter

Two years is nothing. Matter is still in its infancy.

It always takes a while for companies to find their way around and find developers who are familiar with Matter.

Judging from previous articles, I think she means the years have felt very long because what we were promised the matter logo would mean is absolutely not what it has turned out to mean. It has not reduced the amount of pre-purchase research required, and it hasn’t even meant that the same device will work the same way on the four major platforms. (Alexa, Google, Apple Home, and SmartThings.) and it for sure hasn’t meant less customer service support required after purchase. :cold_sweat:

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Takes time.

You could ask a thousand random people in 2001 - 23 years ago - what wifi is and nobody could give the right answer.

Don’t forget that we’re all early adopters at this point in time - consumers and companies.

Two years is absolutely nothing.

(And there was a pandemic
)

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2024 - 2001 = 23 :sunglasses: :sunglasses: just playing with you. I did understand what you meant - just the way you wrote it

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Of course.

Happens when you’re sitting in the cold, feeding foxes.

But I found this nice timeline:

Isn’t it crazy how fast Matter is adopted? Give it another two years


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New Matter 1.4 aims to make your smart devices last longer.

Sigh.

I wish journalists would take the time to understand the difference between an update in the matter specification and what’s actually available in the marketplace.

“ Soon“ definitely doesn’t apply here. :thinking:

The matter specification gets updated twice a year, and 1.4 just came out.

But each individual device manufacturer then has to decide if, how, and when, they are going to update their particular devices with the new features from the standard.

As I mentioned upthread, everything in the matter spec is optional for manufacturers. There’s no minimum Level of functionality they have to provide and there’s no timeline for when they implement new features . Even if their device is being sold with the matter logo.

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Absolutely agree! But their editor says, “Give me an article about
” and said journalist whips it out. I suspect (disclaimer: I’m a pedantic, retired, software engineer/manager, thoroughly disappointed in quick-to-market stuff that isn’t thoroughly thought out or well implemented :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:) word count means more than content. Just like shipping product matters more than whether it even works! (Have experience with that in a Fortune 500 company.)

Matter is fascinating and looks like an awesome end-product. But it ain’t ready for Prime Time yet, as many have commented.

So, in the meantime I’m sticking with Z-Wave which, for me, just works. Others might prefer Zigbee: that’s fine. Some day, I am very sure I’ll try out Matter devices. But in the meantime, with two homes that simply must work, I can’t just reboot something or unplug an unresponsive device when I’m not at that location.

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I have Matter over Thread outlets, switches, and dimmers which don’t have any fancy features like color changing etc. I also have some Matter over Wi-Fi plug-in outlets. They work great and are from reputable vendors so I have confidence in trying these out. And since my ST Wi-Fi hubs are over 6 years old in my primary location, I’m banking on having to replace them in the future so I’m planning on phasing out my Z-Wave as old devices start dying (I’ve had two GE/Jasco outlets keel over on me). I suppose I could get an Aeotec hub in the future, but that’s the same design as the v3 which is an over 6 year old design and is under-powered from a memory perspective. So, with a fridge Family Hub in my primary location and a Station at my second home, the transition to Matter for me seems like the logical next step.

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