If Matter is a supposedly local protocol, why does home assistant contact Google to add devices

[orange-assistant]

@agners

From all I can see, the Matter standard per-se allows local commissioning no problem!

Wonder what will happen if I would own a matter device that then is commissioned offline - can it still get updates?

@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…

Clearly I will never own a matter device as the matter specs don’t allow me even a minimum ownership (and obviously no right to repair/change/modify)

@agners

What might happen is that a particular device stays on a old version of the standard which did not yet cover a particular feature… But that is just the nature of things.

Like having a matter smart plug with power metering capabilities that only can be toggled on/off via matter/ha and the power/voltage/… readings only work with the (obviously crap) vendor app?

This was the standard before a newer matter spec was released that actually included power/voltage/etc., still no obligatory updates for manufactures/vendors means your limited device will stay limited forever