I was cautiously optimistic when Matter/Thread was in its early days, but predictably as with most of these industry backed standards it’s turned into another pay to play walled garden. The CSA seems to be particularly bad at this.
Cant wait to see in subsequent years all the additional e-waste when manufacturers consider devices obsolete, and no one can repurpose them because of Matter spec mandating secure boot.
It's very confusing with a new Zigbee standard when I thought it was being replaced with Thread
And from the same organization that co-designed and promotes Matter.
Personally, I'm very happy that Zigbee continues to be developed. I am not very enthusiastic about everything being IP addressable (even if it is just ULA) and the convoluted Thread flow where a bunch of border routers require you to initiate the pairing with a phone over BLE to hand it over to the router. I have an Eve Energy Thread + Matter plug and it requires many takes to pair it correctly. Most Zigbee devices are just a matter of permitting join on your coordinator and holding/pressing the pairing button on the device.
I wish that Apple and Google would just add a Zigbee coordinator (or just leave home automation to others) and put some effort into supporting a wide variety of devices rather than trying to disrupt a perfectly working standard. They often cannot even bother implementing the latest Matter spec.
What is the pain there?
And all this so Samsung et al can siphon off more user data and show more ads.
I fully understand the consumer viewpoint.
But, it's great news imo with sub-GHz (Suzi)!
Just buy Hue, maybe Aqara sensors, use zigbee2mqtt with Home Assistant and be happy while observing the shitshow that is this market from a safe distance.
Sticking to pure zigbee devices with zigbee2mqtt and slae.sh's excellent USB coordinator. A couple weeks ago I bought a bunch of spare IKEA zigbee devices before they go out of stock. Around 2030 I'll take a look if thread/matter is anywhere near mature and has settled.
https://www.ikea.com/global/en/newsroom/retail/the-new-smart...
I like them because they can use rechargeable AAA batteries but if I still have to touch them every few weeks to repair, I’d rather switch to a different brand that is more reliable and uses less ideal battery formats.
That said, the newish Inspelling plugs in the EU market are fantastic. They report reliably, can handle larger loads, and cost about €10. For that price, it’s hard to complain that they are a bit larger than other options.
You mean "Thread"? Or "Matter over Thread", which some vendors also just call "Matter" (which technically can also stand on it's own, but in many cases implies a Thread requirement). I'm wondering if that muddiness in bad communication will be a significant factor in hindering consumer adoption.
Why would I want yet-another-standard with self-updating devices, using more power (strong cryptography), and closed to certified devices only.
And Suzi sounds like it is going to stomp all over Lora? Hard to tell from that marketing fluff.
In Case you missed it, https://csa-iot.org/newsroom/matter-1-5-introduces-cameras-c...
> Matter 1.5 introduces one of the most anticipated additions to the specification: cameras. Developers can now build and certify cameras that interoperate directly with Matter-enabled ecosystems, without the need for custom APIs or integrations.
> Matter cameras support live video and audio streaming using established WebRTC technology, enabling two-way communication and both local and remote access via standard STUN and TURN protocols. The specification also defines support for multi-stream configurations, pan-tilt-zoom controls, detection and privacy zones, and flexible storage options, including continuous or event-based recording to local or cloud destinations.
You might as well put a pause on any new IP camera purchase for now until these hit the market.
Where-as with DIAL and for the first decade of Google Cast, the device being cast to was basically a web browser & could run any url. It made it so any device could be cast to from any app. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_and_Launch
It's been incredibly disappointing seeing Matter build a standard that completely fails to offer a usable path. I really want to be wrong here, but it sure seems like Matter Cast requires every device to have its own unique bespoke partnership & install already loaded, for everything that will be able to cast to it. It standardizes some protocols for how to communicate, but there's such an anti-standard vendor-controlled limited anti-ecosystem basis.
I really really want Matter to be a good better world. I hope Matter Cameras can bring some unity to streaming camera systems. But man I can not see how Matter Cast could be worse designed, more hostile to the freedom to cast that we've enjoyed, and I really worry for this ecosystem as a whole if this is what Matter is willing to ship.
I'd also really like to see affirmations that Matter is usable sans any big network, sans Google Apple and whomever else. That it really is something we can run ourselves. But I haven't seen validation that Matter really is as liberatory as it's promises, haven't seen evidence that folks really can undo the Internet of Shit damage with Matter. I hope it's just all us being extremely slow on the uptake, but I have heard just so little about running our own provisioning/control networks on Matter. I want so much to believe but my vibe is that we've been rug pulled again.
This will in time result in IoT devices that actually mandate this connection (it was already stipulated in a recent version of the protocol). The end result will be that a new protocol was created, but rather than devices being able to run on their own, we end up with beds in heating mode, ie. the garbage we were trying to avoid in the first place.
So for me, zigbee it is!
These border routers also double as admins, and people want their smart home stuff to be available while they are outside their home network.
Thread devices can mandate internet connectivity the same way Wifi devices can.
Matter defines profiles and does certification that says your light bulbs cannot require an internet connection. The admin your water leak detector connects into can (and arguably should) alert you even when you are away from home, but the leak detector _itself_ cannot do that and be certified.
Like what. I have several hundred zigbee devices of almost all category you can think of, and I have never come across such a requirement. I don't understand how that would even work.
Any reason you prefer Matter rather than Zigbee? Zigbee has been a thing far longer than Matter, so I don't think the "one more standard" criticism is valid here.
The standardization is a plus though.
I know because that’s what I have been doing for the past five years.
But to be fair my setup is now mostly IKEA so I guess I could go back to a bridge and stop having to maintain my stuff at some point.