Home Assistant officially Matters

[GuiPoM]

That is not correct. With a local OpenThread border router, you can commission through the Matter Server add-on Web UI.
This is not the preferred option, as the Companion app is preferred, but it is possible and it works, as long as you also have a compatible bluetooth controller.

[jl1 (Jason)]

When I look at that OpenThread page, the choices for “Commission new WiFi device” and “Commission new Thread device” are both greyed out. I’m guessing because I don’t have Bluetooth on my HA server.

I’m not sure what the situation on the Apple side is, but on Android the Home Assistant app seems to be using software from Google to handle the registration process. I bought a Thread/Matter device a while back to try out, and I thought it was communicating through my Skyconnect. But after a few weeks, I realized that it was actually communicating through my Google Hub. That confused me at first because the Google Hub shouldn’t have even been aware of the device registration. But I later realized it was the registration process was actually going through Google and it associated the Google Hub thread border router with my Google account.

The Home Assistant app on Android has got to get Google out of the picture. And I hope we can get some method of registering through a web browser. If that’s not possible because of Bluetooth then we need some kind of registration app that can be run from a laptop. Registering a device from the HA server could be an issue if the Matter device is far from the server and hardwired into the house.

[0kk0]

Congratulations​:love_you_gesture:

[Hedda]

Wish that could also commission Matter devices without companion apps by connecting a web camera to the computer running Home Assistant OS and scanning the device QR code that way.

Could such a feature with local native QR code scanning via HA OS be possible to add?

[pimw (Pim)]

Congrats! A major milestone.

[mwav3 (Tim)]

Congrats, and thanks for all the hard work to make this happen.

[masitito (Masi)]

I have a HA Yellow and use the internal Zigbee device. As I understand the yellow is only in theory dual protocol.

What I don’t understand is if I add a Matter USB stick (is there such a thing?) to the Yellow I’ll be able to run Zigbee and Matter side-by-side.

Does the new certified add-on change anything in this regard?

[hoppel118]

Congratulations to the Home Assistant and the Resillion Team to archive this mammoth project.

That’s really awesome! Well done!

[orange-assistant]

@Hedda

Wish that could also commission Matter devices without companion apps

Is is not the only shortcoming (contacting apple/google cloud and tell them about the existence of your device)

Matter certified devices seem to allow to put functions into a walled garden/ecosystem (for example only accessible via vendor hub/bridge/app/platform/cloud) and to expose only basic functions (like on/off) via matter

Matter Thermostat not showing Fan Entity

It’s probably some artifical limitation from the device (software). The real problem actually seems to be the matter specification which does not mandate to make all actors/sensors/etc. available via matter. Vendors are allowed to build walled gardens around their matter certified products that may even require hubs or cloud (other people computers) accounts for full control

@PhracturedBlue

I can also confirm that there are only basic controls available in HomeAssistant for the MTS300. I need to be able to control the Fan and Aux modes, and currently the firmware does not support this. Also, be aware that if you do not have Google Home, HomeKit, or SmartThings, that it does not seem possible to get the App to work. I had to do the initial install with the Meross app, and then switch over to HA for the matter pairing. after which the app didn’t see the thermostat (and HA could only control basic settings).

It was supposed to make things better but matter at this point does not allow full ownership and depending on the device only limited local control (after initally contacting apple/google cloud services)

@orange-assistant

many don’t offer that basic settings or might not expose this settings locally.

In case you put your faith in matter you might find yourself forced to install some vendor app with trackers, register yourself with some email to finally be able to change to such a configuration:

Sonoff Matter M5 Wall Switch:

M5 Matter - SONOFF Official

@orange-assistant

@agners

@orange-assistant

The matter standard does allow vendors/manufactures to cook their own soup and have for example only basic functions available exposed to HA and full functionalities only with vendor app/cloud.

Sad that csa/matter just repeats (or even worsen) the wrongdoings of zigbee

Yeah, but the Matter standard also mandates that all features which are covered by the standard must be exposed through Matter. E.g. you cannot release a smart bulb which can dim only through their app, since that is a feature of Matter.

Update: I thought I’ve read that at one point, but I tried to find that statement in the standard and wasn’t able to. What definitely is the case all mandatory clusters for a particular device type a device is certified for must be implemented (obviously). But it seems that Matter optional features could remain left out, even if the device actually has that feature

I think it was falsely advertised that matter would mandate this - maybe it also just was before matter was finalized… Some big corps in the CSA probably didn’t want to loose their walled garden so they watered the matter specs to the fullest before finalized…

It’s quite a joke the matter doesn’t seem to enforce basic/simple (vendors might brand it “special”) features (power on state/detaching/etc.) or even OTA updates to be available without vendor cloud/app/registration

MINI Dry Wi-Fi Smart Switch (Dry Contact Relay) | MINI-D - SONOFF Official

[bigdvette]

The matter server hasn’t been released since December: when can we expect this certified version to be released?

[DriesA (Dries)]

That version IS the certified version. If HA would update that version, it would need to re-certify.

Hence it has been developed as a separate add-on instead of being part of HA core. In that case, it would need to recertify every month with the HA core update

[BobFrankston (Homeassistant)]

It’s good to see support for Matter, even though I have serious issues with the protocol. I plan to write about that in more detail. For now, the key point is that it is inscrutable in that there is no provenance in the sense that I can’t go from the identifier on the device to the Matter device. For now, I carefully update the label, and it sort of works.

Now, to the specific bug. Fortunately, the device info for this device show me

MAC address: c0:5d:89:43:0e:a4
IP address(es): 172.20.5.140

But at some point the IP address changed! I could only find it because I periodically scan all 2000 (OK, 2046) of my IP addresses and found:

172.20.5.141,c0:5d:89:43:0e:a4,,1314

but HA has not updated the information. The fact that Matter commands still work is that the protocol pays only lip service to standards. I plan to learn more about why. It’s a reminder of the dangers of allowing hardware engineers to design protocols to sell chips. But, again, a topic in its own right.

In the meantime, can Home Assistant maintain a mapping of the device to the IP address?

Closely related is the difficulty in finding the IP address using the IP – it does not appear at all in core.device_registry.json.

[BobFrankston (Homeassistant)]

I decided to ask Gemini for help in explaining why Mattter is so terrible. This is a raw transcript with an essay that the end. I plan to write real essay but you can read this temporary version in the menatime (on OneDrive) GeminiMatter.pdf

[MichaelHeimann]

@BobFrankston

I plan to write real essay but you can read this temporary version in the menatime (on OneDrive) GeminiMatter.pdf

This pdf is missing half the text, especially on the right and between pages.

@BobFrankston

the key point is that it is inscrutable in that there is no provenance in the sense that I can’t go from the identifier on the device to the Matter device.

I don’t understand what you want to express here. Do you mean the IP listed on “Device info” in homeassistant is not updated when it changes? Do you want to say this is a general matter issue? All my matter devices have the correct IP information listed - so at least for me this is not happening.

[Ltek]

From scanning this thread, is it best to assume keeping with Zigbee or Zwave or Tuya Wifi (which I already have all of these) is better than adding in a Matter network just to support a few Tapo power outlets?