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(Context: Matter is an application layer protocol to control smart home devices, bring them into your Wifi or Thread network, and they ought to work with Homeki

(Context: Matter is an application layer protocol to control smart home devices, bring them into your Wifi or Thread network, and they ought to work with Homekit/Google Home/Alexa/Smartthings/Home Assistant etc. at the same time) I'm currently working on a Matter device myself and the overengineering is unreal. The idea is great (standardized messages over IP, no internet required, open source SDK on Github) but if they had just used MQTT with some standardized JSON messages and two or three fixed onboarding flows it would have solved the same problems with 1% of the effort. But now the project is absolutely massive, almost 1k pages for the base spec, 1M+ lines of (mostly C++) code for the core SDK, no stable or even well defined API, almost no documentation. Progress is glacial, unsuprisingly. Bug fixes do not seem to be backported to older release branches but there is no source code compatibility either, so the security story will be interesting for sure... Most discussions seem to happen on an internal Discord server and Wiki for paying members only, so the project is not that open either. I really hope that the entire thing gets scrapped and a simpler approach will rise from the ashes...

cryo 3y ago
Last time I cloned the repository it was already over 20 GB, holy ***. Having read the spec up and down a few times I think it's sound, my main complain would be the device attestation and blockchain usage for OTA. Also Matter inherited the very same thing that sucked most for Zigbee: manufacturer specific "enhancements" are valid, what could possibly go wrong.
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> I really hope that the entire thing gets scrapped and a simpler approach will rise from the ashes... Do we need a new thing? ZigBee and mqtt already exist. Maybe something a little nicer over IP networks?
- westurner 3y ago
  "Securing name resolution in the IoT: DNS over CoAP" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32186286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32186286 From https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip#architecture-overview https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip#architecture... : > Matter aims to build a universal IPv6-based communication protocol for smart home devices. The protocol defines the application layer that will be deployed on devices and the different link layers to help maintain interoperability. The following diagram illustrates the normal operational mode of the stack: > [...] It is built with market-proven technologies using Internet Protocol (IP) and is compatible with Thread and Wi-Fi network transports. > Matter was developed by a Working Group within the Connectivity Standards Alliance (Alliance). This Working Group develops and promotes the adoption of the Matter standard, a royalty-free connectivity standard to increase compatibility among smart home products, with security as a fundamental design tenet. The vision that led major industry players to come together to build Matter is that smart connectivity should be simple, reliable, and interoperable. > [...] The code examples show simple interactions, and are supported on multiple transports -- Wi-Fi and Thread -- starting with resource-constrained (i.e., memory, processing) silicon platforms to help ensure Matter’s scalability. Would it make sense to have an mqtt transport for matter? Or a bridge; like homeassistant or similar? https://github.com/home-assistant/core#featured-integrations https://github.com/home-assistant/core#featured-integrations lists mqtt Is there already a good (security) comparison of e.g. http basic auth, x10, ZigBee, mqtt, matter?

cryo 3y ago

Last time I cloned the repository it was already over 20 GB, holy ***. Having read the spec up and down a few times I think it's sound, my main complain would be the device attestation and blockchain usage for OTA. Also Matter inherited the very same thing that sucked most for Zigbee: manufacturer specific "enhancements" are valid, what could possibly go wrong.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

> I really hope that the entire thing gets scrapped and a simpler approach will rise from the ashes... Do we need a new thing? ZigBee and mqtt already exist. Maybe something a little nicer over IP networks?

westurner 3y ago
"Securing name resolution in the IoT: DNS over CoAP" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32186286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32186286 From https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip#architecture-overview https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip#architecture... : > Matter aims to build a universal IPv6-based communication protocol for smart home devices. The protocol defines the application layer that will be deployed on devices and the different link layers to help maintain interoperability. The following diagram illustrates the normal operational mode of the stack: > [...] It is built with market-proven technologies using Internet Protocol (IP) and is compatible with Thread and Wi-Fi network transports. > Matter was developed by a Working Group within the Connectivity Standards Alliance (Alliance). This Working Group develops and promotes the adoption of the Matter standard, a royalty-free connectivity standard to increase compatibility among smart home products, with security as a fundamental design tenet. The vision that led major industry players to come together to build Matter is that smart connectivity should be simple, reliable, and interoperable. > [...] The code examples show simple interactions, and are supported on multiple transports -- Wi-Fi and Thread -- starting with resource-constrained (i.e., memory, processing) silicon platforms to help ensure Matter’s scalability. Would it make sense to have an mqtt transport for matter? Or a bridge; like homeassistant or similar? https://github.com/home-assistant/core#featured-integrations https://github.com/home-assistant/core#featured-integrations lists mqtt Is there already a good (security) comparison of e.g. http basic auth, x10, ZigBee, mqtt, matter?