8 ms·

Explore Matter, the new smart home standard, in Home Assistant

172 points by balloob 4y ago

ramesh31 4y ago
What exactly is a "smart home" now other than a voice recognition program that plays music and turns on the lights? Why do I need a "standard" for that?
- groby_b 4y ago
  You want a music player and light switches that actually do the things you wanted them to do? Without being tied to a single vendor?
- wongarsu 4y ago
  For me "smart home" is more about opening the window blinds in the morning, and turning on the bedroom lights to wake me up. Easily adding light switches that do what I want, and where I want it, without worrying which cables are installed (want to have two separately controlled lamps instead of one? Add a switch next to your bed? no problem). Yes, all these things have been possible for decades, "smart home" just gives them a new branding and a different UX. But once you have a couple of things it becomes handy to have devices communicate. My smart power plug tells me how much energy is being drawn. I could use that to dim the lights when I turn on the projector, but that requires the two devices to live in a common ecosystem of some kind. That's what standards are for.
- sxg 4y ago
  You need a standard so you can use lights and music players from different vendors at the same time. You also need a standard to ensure future devices that don't yet exist also work with your smart home. A third reason: a new upstart can't easily gain traction in the smart home space without a standard to quickly interoperate with existing smart devices.
- progman32 4y ago
  Some examples, inspired by my own automations or ones I've seen implemented: - Warns me if I leave my garage door open, but only if I'm not home. Optionally close it remotely. Provide video feed to see if it's safe to remotely close. - When I walk out the door, warns me if I have windows or doors open or the stove's on. Automatically arms security. Automatically turn off all lights, music, heat, etc but only if I don't have guests over. - If burglar alarm goes off, turn on interior lights, flash exterior lights, turn on the radio, trigger my car's alarm, push relevant video feed to phone. If the alarm is disarmed, use the same presence and door sensors to turn lights on and off automatically. - Triggers notifications (or the alarm as appropriate) if cams detect a human. Turn off certain cams if anyone's home. - When any of my 3d printers finish, ring my phone. Optionally cut power to the printers if something goes wrong. - Warn me when the garage door opens and it's below freezing outside. - If any of my electrical circuits go over-current, warn me and optionally automatically shed some load. - If it's about to rain, automatically close windows and disable the sprinkler system. - Open the blinds when my smartphone alarm goes off. - Defer car charging, running the dryer, etc until solar panels have excess capacity. - Warn me if my fridge or other critical things stop working. All of these things use equipment from different manufacturers. It's great to have them all play together - but it's only possible because Home Assistant has an entire army of contributors who reverse engineer all sorts of closed protocols. A standard helps with that. Ideally, staying exclusively on the local network.
  - ramesh31 4y ago
    Ah, so another thing to sell to rich people at a huge markup. Got it.
    - nomel 4y ago
      You can find contact sensors, motion sensors, cameras, thermometers, and smart plugs for < $15 each. Being rich is definitely not required. One use case I have, to save significant amounts of money, is that I get a notification if a window is open and the inside vs outside temperature difference is too great. The sensors have paid for themselves many times over already.
- Digit-Al 4y ago
  Troy Hunt did a series on how he set up his smart home, and finished with a bunch of use cases from his own setup [1]. This article also has links to the other posts in his series, showing how he set it all up and what a mess it all is at the moment. [1] https://www.troyhunt.com/iot-unravelled-part-5-practical-use-case-videos/ https://www.troyhunt.com/iot-unravelled-part-5-practical-use...
noelwelsh 4y ago
I've never seen a compelling use of smart home technology, and I really don't want the continuing functionality my home to be dependent on the whims of some corporation.
- ct0 4y ago
  Do you know what Home Assistant even is?
  - goodpoint 4y ago
    A home automation stack that alleges to be open source but can only deploy it the way they want.
    - zja 4y ago
      What does the deployment have to do with whether or not the project is open source?
      - 0des 4y ago
        Stop hitting yourself, you're mad that someone who doesn't know what they're talking about, in fact, does not know what theyre talking about. Just keep walking.
      - goodpoint 4y ago
        The fundamental principles of FOSS are around freedom to use, redistribute and modify code. Many different things can weaken the freedom to use and modify. For example, if somebody gives you only binaries, or obfuscated sources, or only minified javascript. Or projects with very difficult build process and no documentation, or unnecessarily complex deployment or too many functional dependencies. Or making the project not very modular, requiring people to deploy a whole VM or container with tenths or hundreds of dependencies bundled in. The list goes on and on. For example a lot of commercial "open-core" products deploy a lot of tricks to make forks difficult to maintain in the long term. Many are open source only strictly speaking aka legally, but they discourage REdistribution. Android is an extreme example of this and you can see how HA goes in that direction. EDIT: There's a company funding HA development and profiting from it using a subscription model...
leonsmith 4y ago
Is matter actually an open standard? When I last looked into the CSA stuff you had to pay a few thousand dollars a year to become a member to access any specifications
- jasode 4y ago
  > When I last looked into the CSA stuff you had to pay a few thousand dollars a year to become a member to access any specifications Don't know if it's what you're looking for but downloadable pdf docs for (Zigbee) Rf4ce specifications are at the CSA Resources page: https://csa-iot.org/resources/developer-resources/ https://csa-iot.org/resources/developer-resources/ EDIT reply to: >Matter is not ZigBee. Setting aside the radio incompatibilities, various web articles says Matter was Zigbee Alliance "Project CHIP" and later rebranded to "Matter". And "CSA Connectivity Standards Alliance" is itself a rebranding of "Zigbee Alliance". If the pdf reference docs are not relevant, I guess I don't understand why they're hosted at the domain "csa-iot.org".
  - nl 4y ago
    Matter is not ZigBee. I believe it needs a whole new radio.
    - hansihe 4y ago
      As I understand it, Matter uses Thread to communicate with low power devices. Thread uses the IEEE 802.15.4 PHY and MAC. Zigbee also uses the IEEE 802.15.4 PHY and MAC, using the same frequency bands as Thread as far as I understand it. Maybe a new radio is needed if you want BLE commissioning (is this required?), but for operation any chip with a IEEE 802.15.4 PHY should support both Thread and Zigbee.
    - bin_bash 4y ago
      I think it can run on wifi or Thread (possibly zigbee too if I’m reading the wiki right) but I may be wrong. It also uses BLE but I think only for initial setup.
- 4y ago
jakewins 4y ago
> Matter is the reliable IoT compatibility standard that drives category growth by simplifying the purchasing process, expanding the smart home category to more retailers, and lowering operational costs. [1] In case anyone was wondering what Matter is. [1] https://csa-iot.org/all-solutions/matter/ https://csa-iot.org/all-solutions/matter/
- wongarsu 4y ago
  The pitch for consumers: > Matter is the seal of approval that says smart devices work reliably together—taking the guesswork out of the purchasing process. That trust allows you to choose from a wider range of the brands you love, and brings you the comfort of a secure and seamless connected home. Which is indeed a major pain point with IoT so far: purchasing things that work together (instead of only cooperating in their own ecosystem and with Alexa). Of course that's more or less what HomeAssistant was already trying to do, but Matter might make this more appealing for "casual" users.
  - viraptor 4y ago
    I thought zwave certification pretty much solved it? There are of course issues with higher cost, etc. but I thought zwave was the approved cooperating option and zigbee is the yolo option.
    - oaiey 4y ago
      The ZigBee alliance next gen protocol is what is nowadays branded as Matter. So it is certification but also improvements on the stack. Which make sense to simplify things.
    - pkulak 4y ago
      With zwave, you can't actually implement the spec yourself, you have to buy little bits of hardware from the only company selling them. That, of course, is pretty good for compatibility. Zigbee is just a spec, but no one actually follows it properly. Now the next version of Zigbee is rebranding as matter and hoping that this time everyone follows the spec. I'm assuming through some sort of certification program, which, as cynical as I am, may actually work.
Siecje 4y ago
Is Matter a protocol? Can it be used with WiFi and Z-Wave and Zigbee? Or is it just a certification?
- spallas 4y ago
  https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip
  - Siecje 4y ago
    > building with and on top of market-tested, existing technologies. I think yes?
tekmaven 4y ago
TLDR: Home Assistant and their community are experimenting today (June 15) with a Matter Workshop, where they will connect a ESP32 dev board to HA via matter.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
AndrianV 4y ago
I'm not sure what's in the workshop, but the list of supported devices in the Google Matter sample code can provide you some ideas for ESP32 device compatibility. A single LED would be on a different pin, driven by a different protocol, and would likely require a different Matter lighting endpoint sans color and brightness, in addition to the CPU differences (unless you did your own PWM).
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  Can you share a link to the sample code?
  - jacksons5f 4y ago
    Not sure about the OC's example, but there are a lot of examples in the matter SDK itself: https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip/tree/master/examples https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip/tree/master/...
dangus 4y ago
Is this just another example of https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ ?
- function_seven 4y ago
  It could be. Or it could be more like how USB came along and obsoleted DB9, DB25, parallel ports, and PS/2 ports. I hope it's the second one, but time will tell...
- Digit-Al 4y ago
  I think this is different in that, currently, there are no standards - just a lot of companies doing their own thing.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

172 points by balloob 4y ago

What exactly is a "smart home" now other than a voice recognition program that plays music and turns on the lights? Why do I need a "standard" for that?

groby_b 4y ago
You want a music player and light switches that actually do the things you wanted them to do? Without being tied to a single vendor?
wongarsu 4y ago
For me "smart home" is more about opening the window blinds in the morning, and turning on the bedroom lights to wake me up. Easily adding light switches that do what I want, and where I want it, without worrying which cables are installed (want to have two separately controlled lamps instead of one? Add a switch next to your bed? no problem). Yes, all these things have been possible for decades, "smart home" just gives them a new branding and a different UX. But once you have a couple of things it becomes handy to have devices communicate. My smart power plug tells me how much energy is being drawn. I could use that to dim the lights when I turn on the projector, but that requires the two devices to live in a common ecosystem of some kind. That's what standards are for.
sxg 4y ago
You need a standard so you can use lights and music players from different vendors at the same time. You also need a standard to ensure future devices that don't yet exist also work with your smart home. A third reason: a new upstart can't easily gain traction in the smart home space without a standard to quickly interoperate with existing smart devices.
progman32 4y ago
Some examples, inspired by my own automations or ones I've seen implemented: - Warns me if I leave my garage door open, but only if I'm not home. Optionally close it remotely. Provide video feed to see if it's safe to remotely close. - When I walk out the door, warns me if I have windows or doors open or the stove's on. Automatically arms security. Automatically turn off all lights, music, heat, etc but only if I don't have guests over. - If burglar alarm goes off, turn on interior lights, flash exterior lights, turn on the radio, trigger my car's alarm, push relevant video feed to phone. If the alarm is disarmed, use the same presence and door sensors to turn lights on and off automatically. - Triggers notifications (or the alarm as appropriate) if cams detect a human. Turn off certain cams if anyone's home. - When any of my 3d printers finish, ring my phone. Optionally cut power to the printers if something goes wrong. - Warn me when the garage door opens and it's below freezing outside. - If any of my electrical circuits go over-current, warn me and optionally automatically shed some load. - If it's about to rain, automatically close windows and disable the sprinkler system. - Open the blinds when my smartphone alarm goes off. - Defer car charging, running the dryer, etc until solar panels have excess capacity. - Warn me if my fridge or other critical things stop working. All of these things use equipment from different manufacturers. It's great to have them all play together - but it's only possible because Home Assistant has an entire army of contributors who reverse engineer all sorts of closed protocols. A standard helps with that. Ideally, staying exclusively on the local network.
- ramesh31 4y ago
  Ah, so another thing to sell to rich people at a huge markup. Got it.
  - nomel 4y ago
    You can find contact sensors, motion sensors, cameras, thermometers, and smart plugs for < $15 each. Being rich is definitely not required. One use case I have, to save significant amounts of money, is that I get a notification if a window is open and the inside vs outside temperature difference is too great. The sensors have paid for themselves many times over already.
Digit-Al 4y ago
Troy Hunt did a series on how he set up his smart home, and finished with a bunch of use cases from his own setup [1]. This article also has links to the other posts in his series, showing how he set it all up and what a mess it all is at the moment. [1] https://www.troyhunt.com/iot-unravelled-part-5-practical-use-case-videos/ https://www.troyhunt.com/iot-unravelled-part-5-practical-use...

noelwelsh 4y ago

I've never seen a compelling use of smart home technology, and I really don't want the continuing functionality my home to be dependent on the whims of some corporation.

ct0 4y ago
Do you know what Home Assistant even is?
- goodpoint 4y ago
  A home automation stack that alleges to be open source but can only deploy it the way they want.
  - zja 4y ago
    What does the deployment have to do with whether or not the project is open source?
    - 0des 4y ago
      Stop hitting yourself, you're mad that someone who doesn't know what they're talking about, in fact, does not know what theyre talking about. Just keep walking.
    - goodpoint 4y ago
      The fundamental principles of FOSS are around freedom to use, redistribute and modify code. Many different things can weaken the freedom to use and modify. For example, if somebody gives you only binaries, or obfuscated sources, or only minified javascript. Or projects with very difficult build process and no documentation, or unnecessarily complex deployment or too many functional dependencies. Or making the project not very modular, requiring people to deploy a whole VM or container with tenths or hundreds of dependencies bundled in. The list goes on and on. For example a lot of commercial "open-core" products deploy a lot of tricks to make forks difficult to maintain in the long term. Many are open source only strictly speaking aka legally, but they discourage REdistribution. Android is an extreme example of this and you can see how HA goes in that direction. EDIT: There's a company funding HA development and profiting from it using a subscription model...

leonsmith 4y ago

Is matter actually an open standard? When I last looked into the CSA stuff you had to pay a few thousand dollars a year to become a member to access any specifications

jasode 4y ago
> When I last looked into the CSA stuff you had to pay a few thousand dollars a year to become a member to access any specifications Don't know if it's what you're looking for but downloadable pdf docs for (Zigbee) Rf4ce specifications are at the CSA Resources page: https://csa-iot.org/resources/developer-resources/ https://csa-iot.org/resources/developer-resources/ EDIT reply to: >Matter is not ZigBee. Setting aside the radio incompatibilities, various web articles says Matter was Zigbee Alliance "Project CHIP" and later rebranded to "Matter". And "CSA Connectivity Standards Alliance" is itself a rebranding of "Zigbee Alliance". If the pdf reference docs are not relevant, I guess I don't understand why they're hosted at the domain "csa-iot.org".
- nl 4y ago
  Matter is not ZigBee. I believe it needs a whole new radio.
  - hansihe 4y ago
    As I understand it, Matter uses Thread to communicate with low power devices. Thread uses the IEEE 802.15.4 PHY and MAC. Zigbee also uses the IEEE 802.15.4 PHY and MAC, using the same frequency bands as Thread as far as I understand it. Maybe a new radio is needed if you want BLE commissioning (is this required?), but for operation any chip with a IEEE 802.15.4 PHY should support both Thread and Zigbee.
  - bin_bash 4y ago
    I think it can run on wifi or Thread (possibly zigbee too if I’m reading the wiki right) but I may be wrong. It also uses BLE but I think only for initial setup.
4y ago

jakewins 4y ago

> Matter is the reliable IoT compatibility standard that drives category growth by simplifying the purchasing process, expanding the smart home category to more retailers, and lowering operational costs. [1] In case anyone was wondering what Matter is. [1] https://csa-iot.org/all-solutions/matter/ https://csa-iot.org/all-solutions/matter/

wongarsu 4y ago
The pitch for consumers: > Matter is the seal of approval that says smart devices work reliably together—taking the guesswork out of the purchasing process. That trust allows you to choose from a wider range of the brands you love, and brings you the comfort of a secure and seamless connected home. Which is indeed a major pain point with IoT so far: purchasing things that work together (instead of only cooperating in their own ecosystem and with Alexa). Of course that's more or less what HomeAssistant was already trying to do, but Matter might make this more appealing for "casual" users.
- viraptor 4y ago
  I thought zwave certification pretty much solved it? There are of course issues with higher cost, etc. but I thought zwave was the approved cooperating option and zigbee is the yolo option.
  - oaiey 4y ago
    The ZigBee alliance next gen protocol is what is nowadays branded as Matter. So it is certification but also improvements on the stack. Which make sense to simplify things.
  - pkulak 4y ago
    With zwave, you can't actually implement the spec yourself, you have to buy little bits of hardware from the only company selling them. That, of course, is pretty good for compatibility. Zigbee is just a spec, but no one actually follows it properly. Now the next version of Zigbee is rebranding as matter and hoping that this time everyone follows the spec. I'm assuming through some sort of certification program, which, as cynical as I am, may actually work.

Siecje 4y ago

Is Matter a protocol? Can it be used with WiFi and Z-Wave and Zigbee? Or is it just a certification?

spallas 4y ago
https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip
- Siecje 4y ago
  > building with and on top of market-tested, existing technologies. I think yes?

tekmaven 4y ago

TLDR: Home Assistant and their community are experimenting today (June 15) with a Matter Workshop, where they will connect a ESP32 dev board to HA via matter.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

AndrianV 4y ago

I'm not sure what's in the workshop, but the list of supported devices in the Google Matter sample code can provide you some ideas for ESP32 device compatibility. A single LED would be on a different pin, driven by a different protocol, and would likely require a different Matter lighting endpoint sans color and brightness, in addition to the CPU differences (unless you did your own PWM).

vineyardmike 4y ago
Can you share a link to the sample code?
- jacksons5f 4y ago
  Not sure about the OC's example, but there are a lot of examples in the matter SDK itself: https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip/tree/master/examples https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip/tree/master/...

dangus 4y ago

Is this just another example of https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ ?

function_seven 4y ago
It could be. Or it could be more like how USB came along and obsoleted DB9, DB25, parallel ports, and PS/2 ports. I hope it's the second one, but time will tell...
Digit-Al 4y ago
I think this is different in that, currently, there are no standards - just a lot of companies doing their own thing.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]