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Matter. Not fit for human consumption. I understand how compelling the marketing hype seems at first, but a quick investigation reveals this to be yet another

Matter. Not fit for human consumption. I understand how compelling the marketing hype seems at first, but a quick investigation reveals this to be yet another mafia shakedown and effort to lock down and prevent any meaningful competition. They have a 16-bit Vendor ID. That's 65,535 vendors supported. Globally. Ever. One must pay the CSA ([0] $2,500 per PRODUCT or $7,000 per YEAR) for one of these artificially scarce identifiers. In order to download specs, you're expected to accept TOS, authenticate and then you're emailed a (presumably authenticated) link to the PDF [1]. You need to wait for the consortium to define every single application layer detail for each and every type of thing [2]. Of course, the decision makers are unable to make high quality decisions since their own businesses depend on trapping customers in their respective walled gardens. The goal is to prevent any small or medium sized businesses from competing with the small handful of multinational megacorps. From what I can tell, it's all of the worst parts of USB, without HID and Serial to fall back on for things they didn't think to define. [0] https://csa-iot.org/become-member/#Membership https://csa-iot.org/become-member/#Membership [1] https://csa-iot.org/developer-resource/specifications-download-request/ https://csa-iot.org/developer-resource/specifications-downlo... [2] You must download the "Device Library" spec yourself, as my link is fingerprinted and I do not wish to violate a hidden TOS clause. [edit] formatting

fnordpiglet 3y ago
It has a cool name and cute logo though. I’m sure it’s easy to silk screen onto a device.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
HankB99 3y ago
> They have a 16-bit Vendor ID. That's 65,535 vendors supported. Globally. Ever. One must pay the CSA ([0] $2,500 per PRODUCT or $7,000 per YEAR) for one of these artificially scarce identifiers. I didn't know any of this. I pay attention to IoT (and run a modest Home Assistant setup in my home.) Had I known about these constraints, I would have written off Matter from the beginning. What were they thinking?
- anymouse123456 3y ago
  Coming from software and making the move to hardware has been incredibly eye-opening. As soon as you need to instantiate something with atoms, the cycle-times and overall difficulty increases exponentially. Just when you think you've got something, all these despicable gatekeepers shove their hands in your pockets. There are lots of reasons we can't have small batch, niche electronic products, and these license fees combined with even worse regulatory costs require enormous sales volumes to amortize. It's really concerning to see the same rent-seeking values making such strong headway in the software space over the past 5-10 years too.
- margalabargala 3y ago
  > What were they thinking? Take a gue$$
  - HankB99 3y ago
    But no $$ if not successful.
dns_snek 3y ago
I've read a lot about smart home protocols and I didn't realize Matter failed at its #1 selling point, being open-source. This is why I love HN, thanks for pointing it out.
cesarb 3y ago
> They have a 16-bit Vendor ID. That's 65,535 vendors supported. Globally. Ever. Isn't that the same as USB or PCI? Both also have a 16-bit vendor ID.
- anymouse123456 3y ago
  Yep. The USB-IF also artificially limits the vendor address space, which gives them the ability to charge exorbitant fees before anyone can deploy a device without conflicts. I haven't tried to build and deploy a PCI device yet, but given your point, I assume the same game is being played. At least with these 2 technologies, they can lean on being around for some decades. Bits were quite a lot more expensive 20+ years ago.
- seanalltogether 3y ago
  Bluetooth as well.
aksss 3y ago
I think that the vendor ID limitation is less of a hurdle, realistically, than it’s made out to be, especially in the short term. Simple cert costs and loss of captured markets/lack of demand are the bigger impediments. But I don’t think the obituary needs to be written on matter yet.
- anymouse123456 3y ago
  The problem is that such a small address space, combined with such large fees, makes it impossible for almost all individuals (and tiny organizations) to participate on equal footing with megacorps. Another measly byte (or two) could have made it possible for fees to be reduced down the road, but as-is, there is an artificial barrier to popular access.
eternityforest 3y ago
I was so excited about Matter at first, but now it seems like nobody really cares. WiFi has gotten way more reliable, and devices with open local APIs are more common now. Bluetooth is even starting to be used occasionally. YoLink's LoRa based hardware is still better than anything else even slightly affordable, even though it's still totally a closed cloud based platform.
jnwatson 3y ago
Literally the second link on Google: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://csa-iot.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/22-27349-001_Matter-1.0-Core-Specification.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiqnuPk7quDAxVpLzQIHSq1DfoQFnoECB4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw1lRSBltPHAB4kPyVbMtgC- https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=8997844...
- anymouse123456 3y ago
  What an odd choice for them to hide the download link behind a verified email address and coerce a TOS accept that is presumably linked, then make the documents available via search links. I assumed my link in my email was fingerprinted as there are some odd characters encoded into the URL. As it turns out, it matched the search result link. That's good to know. Thanks!

fnordpiglet 3y ago

It has a cool name and cute logo though. I’m sure it’s easy to silk screen onto a device.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

HankB99 3y ago

> They have a 16-bit Vendor ID. That's 65,535 vendors supported. Globally. Ever. One must pay the CSA ([0] $2,500 per PRODUCT or $7,000 per YEAR) for one of these artificially scarce identifiers. I didn't know any of this. I pay attention to IoT (and run a modest Home Assistant setup in my home.) Had I known about these constraints, I would have written off Matter from the beginning. What were they thinking?

anymouse123456 3y ago
Coming from software and making the move to hardware has been incredibly eye-opening. As soon as you need to instantiate something with atoms, the cycle-times and overall difficulty increases exponentially. Just when you think you've got something, all these despicable gatekeepers shove their hands in your pockets. There are lots of reasons we can't have small batch, niche electronic products, and these license fees combined with even worse regulatory costs require enormous sales volumes to amortize. It's really concerning to see the same rent-seeking values making such strong headway in the software space over the past 5-10 years too.
margalabargala 3y ago
> What were they thinking? Take a gue$$
- HankB99 3y ago
  But no $$ if not successful.

dns_snek 3y ago

I've read a lot about smart home protocols and I didn't realize Matter failed at its #1 selling point, being open-source. This is why I love HN, thanks for pointing it out.

cesarb 3y ago

> They have a 16-bit Vendor ID. That's 65,535 vendors supported. Globally. Ever. Isn't that the same as USB or PCI? Both also have a 16-bit vendor ID.

anymouse123456 3y ago
Yep. The USB-IF also artificially limits the vendor address space, which gives them the ability to charge exorbitant fees before anyone can deploy a device without conflicts. I haven't tried to build and deploy a PCI device yet, but given your point, I assume the same game is being played. At least with these 2 technologies, they can lean on being around for some decades. Bits were quite a lot more expensive 20+ years ago.
seanalltogether 3y ago
Bluetooth as well.

aksss 3y ago

I think that the vendor ID limitation is less of a hurdle, realistically, than it’s made out to be, especially in the short term. Simple cert costs and loss of captured markets/lack of demand are the bigger impediments. But I don’t think the obituary needs to be written on matter yet.

anymouse123456 3y ago
The problem is that such a small address space, combined with such large fees, makes it impossible for almost all individuals (and tiny organizations) to participate on equal footing with megacorps. Another measly byte (or two) could have made it possible for fees to be reduced down the road, but as-is, there is an artificial barrier to popular access.

eternityforest 3y ago

I was so excited about Matter at first, but now it seems like nobody really cares. WiFi has gotten way more reliable, and devices with open local APIs are more common now. Bluetooth is even starting to be used occasionally. YoLink's LoRa based hardware is still better than anything else even slightly affordable, even though it's still totally a closed cloud based platform.

jnwatson 3y ago

Literally the second link on Google: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://csa-iot.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/22-27349-001_Matter-1.0-Core-Specification.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiqnuPk7quDAxVpLzQIHSq1DfoQFnoECB4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw1lRSBltPHAB4kPyVbMtgC- https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=8997844...

anymouse123456 3y ago
What an odd choice for them to hide the download link behind a verified email address and coerce a TOS accept that is presumably linked, then make the documents available via search links. I assumed my link in my email was fingerprinted as there are some odd characters encoded into the URL. As it turns out, it matched the search result link. That's good to know. Thanks!