With SmartThings using Matter is very similar to Zigbee and Z-Wave in that you pair a hardware device to a specific hub (or primary hub in a hub group). There can be multiple Matter controllers but there is a one to one correspondence between a SmartThings device and a Matter controller (though the actual hardware device can be paired as multiple SmartThings devices on different hubs).
With Google Home you install Matter devices into a home/household and on a good day it just works. I have a number of Google Nest Mini devices (they were free) and as far as I know each of them can be a Matter controller. Does anyone know how they are used? Should I be thinking in terms of there being a single âvirtualâ Matter controller with multiple points of presence? I guess what I am really saying is that I need to have at least one of those Nest Mini devices powered on in order for things to work, but can it just be one and does it matter which one it is?
It appears that even Google isnât quite sure how it works.
From the Google developer newsletter:
We recommend that the account used for development only have a single Matter-enabled hub connected for testing. Multiple Matter-enabled hubs connected at the same time or connected to the same structure during testing could result in unpredictable behavior.
I found the initial post very interesting. Have I understood this correctly? I have a couple of Nest hubs and a few Nest Minis in the house, but everything so far is connected to the SmartThings hub. Can I buy a Matter-enabled device from basically any provider, connect it through Google Home and then use it in the SmartThings system? Or does that developer comment suggest it could go horribly wrong because I have âmultiple Matter-enabled hubsâ?
Each platform requires its own Matter controller. For SmartThings is the hub, for Google most Nest speakers and displays.
What Matter allows is multi-admin, which is connecting the same device to more than one platform, so you donât need to use cloud integrations or connect âthrough another platformâ.
This topic is actually about how Google Home manages having multiple speakers/displays that can act as controllers.
This was the point of my final sentence. Does the mere presence of multiple potential Matter controllers, i.e. Nest hubs and minis, mean that it wonât or might not work? I am guessing the answer is that we donât know.
If by âit worksâ you mean being able to use the same device in multiple platforms (multi-admin), itâs unrelated. Google Home is a platform and SmartThings is another, once setup they donât interact when you connect the same device to both Matter platforms so SmartThings is not going to be affected by anything happening on Google Home side.
Really? I thought that was the whole point of Matter. I clearly havenât understood anything. I thought if I installed a Matter device on the Google Home side and had that connected to SmartThings, they could be used on SmartThings.
It certainly isnât a fundamental problem as Iâve paired Matter devices, both Wi-Fi and Thread, with a SmartThings hub, used multi-admin to then pair them to Google Home in the presence of three controllers, and then moved across to Google Home and used multi-admin to pair them to another SmartThings hub. It doesnât matter if that hub is in the same location or not (indeed it even offers the same Hub the device is already paired to).
That doesnât mean there arenât issues. Using thread initial pairing is a struggle and I can rarely multi-admin at all now. I put that down to dodgy device firmware which I canât currently update, and a border router that doesnât claim to be ready for prime time yet.
What I donât have a grasp of is how Google uses itâs Matter controllers. I still have three Nest Minis in use and I simply donât know if that is a good, bad, or neutral thing with regard to how crap Matter commissioning can be for me. I also donât know the impact or turning any of those controllers off at any time. With SmartThings it is pretty clear how things work together. With Google Iâve no idea what does what.
Remember that there are three different transport protocols for matter at the time of this posting.
If a device is individually certified for matter over thread, then as @mocelet mentioned you can connect the same device to multiple platforms at the same time using the matter âmulti adminâ feature. So one connection to SmartThings, one connection to Google, etc.
It works the same way if a device is individually certified for matter over Wi-Fi.
However, if the device is not individually certified for matter, but is brought in using a âmatter bridge,â such as how IKEA is bringing in its tradfri Zigbee lights via its Dirigera hub, then the structure is different.
You add the Zigbee device to its platform matter bridge, then you add that matter bridge to SmartThings (Or any other matter controller that supports matter bridges) and the bridge brings in some of the other devices attached to it.
So
Tradfri bulb â-> dirigera hub â-> SmartThings
Tradfri bulbâ-> dirigera hub â-> Google Home
Etc.
I just mention this because I believe you had been talking about the Dirigera hub in a different thread
Itâs full of errors, like saying a Matter controller is not needed except for remote control, that a Thread border router is a Matter bridge, that the ST app is a controller⌠There are Matter controller apps like Smart Life or, in a few days, Apple Home, but itâs not the norm.
Also, the post is about Google Home and multiple controllers and doesnât say anything about that so it would fit better in the generic Matter post.
I canât see a possibility to move this, but given all the mistakes in the article, it probably isnât worth it! Thanks for the feedback though. I will ignore the article now.
