I hope this will enable us to have an easy to setup smart home system that runs completely locally, powered by Home Assistant. I’m tired of all this cheap chinese IoT garbage that connects to the cloud and sends all of your data to the CCP.
May I suggest the use of ZigBee protocol devices instead of WiFi or Tuya. You will need a ZigBee dongle in HA but it will work locally without cloud intervals.Zigbee also creates a mesh network , so it has less connectivity issues. It should be noted that not all kinds of sensors and devices use the ZigBee protocol.
I already use ZigBee devices along with some Z-Wave stuff, but it was kind of a pain to set it all up with Home Assistant. To be fair, my setup is also quite complicated, but there are definitely some steps in the configuration process that could be easier.
I have just started from scratch after moving house and the Zigbee devices all came onboard very smoothly. Bluetooth on the other hand…
Does Matter matter yet?
adding support for nine new types of connected devices. Robot vacuums, refrigerators, washing machines, and dishwashers are coming to Matter, as are smoke and CO alarms, air quality sensors, air purifiers, room air conditions, and fans.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The initial feature set for the new device types includes basic function controls (start / stop, change mode) and notifications — such as the temperature of your fridge, the status of your laundry, or whether smoke is detected (see sidebar for more).
A benefit of Matter for manufacturers is being able to focus efforts on products and features and not have to build support for multiple protocols or ecosystems or even necessarily make an app.
Taylor Lehman at Google Home said, “We’re working hard to add more support for Matter devices to our ecosystem … this will take time.” I also reached out to Samsung SmartThings and Apple but neither provided an answer.
Chris LaPré, head of technology at the CSA, explained to me that the effort is designed to fix the problem of ecosystems not directly communicating, i.e., an Apple HomePod won’t talk to a Google Nest Hub.
It has wide adoption among the big appliance manufacturers, including LG, Haier, Samsung, and Electrolux (Whirlpool is not a member; Bean told me they are watching it closely).
When I spoke to Jaeyeon Jung, global head of SmartThings, at the IFA 2023 tech conference, I asked if the company planned to make any of its appliances Matter device types.
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