Got mine setup tonight. Some things I think are interesting, even as an iOS user.
It comes with firmware 45.11 loaded, but shows an update available. Choosing the Firmware Update button doesn’t really do anything as far as I can tell, so I assume i’ll get the update whenever SmartThings pleases. FWIW, the Matter cert for the Station was for firmware 46, so i’d expect it to be some version of that
The button and charging status routine options are very good. The button acts like any other button with press/held/double press. You can control the hub status LED via routines, which is awesome if you’re like me and will have this on your nightstand
you CAN install community drivers. I haven’t done any stress testing at this point to see how many, etc., but it can be done. So far i’ve paired a zigbee bulb with the standard driver and installed a community TP-link Kasa LAN driver
In the Groovy IDE, the Station is called the “Samsung MX Linux Wireless Charger Hub”
It’s a standalone Zigbee/Matter hub. For devices on a separate v3 hub to be managed or included in Routines, it will be cloud to cloud just like today’s existing hub to hub communication.
Yup, it can run alongside a V3 (like mine is), but SmartThings doesn’t have a local hub-to-hub communication. So devices in separate hubs won’t share the same Zigbee network. However, Matter over Thread is supposed to share boarder routers and right now mine are showing as two separate Thread networks with no way to combine them
can i also understand how today hub to hub works? etc if i have a philips hue devices and hub, andn add to smartthings hub 1, can i also add it to smartthings hub 2? or i can just add to 1 smartthings hub to control the lights?
what about the smartthings app? i have to switch between the 2 in the app?
So the station is basically the same as a hub v3 but without z wave? And you cannot do hub 2 hub?
Am I missing anything? So for most people it will be able to do most of what the hub v3 does?
And it has thread?
Is it a more powerful processor?
It’s an inexpensive ($60), stripped down version of the V3 that also has a phone charger on top of it. It has thread, Zigbee, and WiFi, but no zwave. And it has galaxy find capabilities, and a nice scene button.
I still think it’s primarily intended for people who have a Samsung smart television or appliance and a Galaxy phone but no hub and want to start adding matter devices. But they haven’t said that officially.
You can include devices from both a v2/v3/Aeotec and the new Station hub in the same routine. It’s just that the Routine will have to run in the cloud vs locally. Same as hub->hub today.
Didn’t the article from the Verge say that Samsung said the hub will NOT be able to talk to other hubs even through Matter?
Matter over thread is supposed to share boarder routers, but I thought because of how Samsung was implementing it, this was already understand to be a no deal. If they allow their hubs to combine with Matter\Thread why not allow combining with say, Echo Hubs through Matter\Thread. Otherwise, what’s the point. All this Matter\Thread stuff just becomes another thing to add to Zwave, ZigBee.
The hubs don’t talk directly to each other, but they both talk to the cloud, so you can have them both on the same account.
From the verge article:
The good news is that you can run multiple SmartThings hubs, so if you started with the Station and then decided you did want to add Z-Wave, you could integrate an Aeotec hub into your setup. But Samsung told me that for entirely local automations, all devices involved must be on the same hub. If your devices are on different hubs, the automations on them will run in the cloud.
Also, it’s really important to understand that a “matter controller” is not necessarily in matter terminology considered a “matter device.“
You will not be able to use a Google nest home smart speaker to control an echo smart speaker, for example. Both are matter controllers, neither is a controllable “matter device.”
Same for the smartthings hubs. They are matter controllers, but not matter devices.
As far as the point, there are several top goals for the matter standard:
let customers choose whatever app they want to use (that is matter compatible), and make it easy to add matter certified devices to that app. And to multiple apps.
simplify the onboarding process so that it basically works like HomeKit: scan a QR code, and you’re done
use more secure Wi-Fi for local communications from the matter certified devices to the matter controller. (Not to each other.)
All three of these are a big advantage over the current situation./Consumers should be able to select a device based on the logo on the box and know that it will work at their house whether their preferred voice assistant is Alexa, Google, or Siri. And whether their preferred app is Apple home or smartthings or IKEA.
Will automations run local if Matter wifi devices are part of the equation? Those devices connect to a router instead of a hub but are they treated no differently than devices that are connected to another ST hub?
Theoretically they should work the way the local LAN integration with the hue bridge works now. That is, the matter Wi-Fi device will be eligible to run locally, but after that, it depends on exactly what is in the routine. For example, if you are including it in a scene, that would probably require the cloud, because most scenes require the cloud. But we are just going to have to wait and see.
I’m just thinking about simple routines like motion sensor turns on a light there when motion is detected. As long as stuff like that still works locally than I’ll be happy.
Just too bad I’ll have to buy a couple new hubs(for Switchbot and Yolink) to ensure my current devices work with everything else and locally.
