It was time for me to replace more of my non-smart switches and my last purchase was Kasa matter dimmer switches. Prior to that was non-matter switches.
I can find them on Amazon but checking on TP-LINK site they are not listed. Have they been discontinued? I haven’t really heard much regarding matter adoption.
I thought matter was the evolution of all smart devices? Has this been abandoned?
I’m seond guessing myself whether I should invest more into matter or something else.
I don’t think it’s dead. It’s not alive yet. If I’m not wrong, it doesn’t even support all the device types zigbee does. So why would people switch? It has to support all the same as zigbee + something more (robovacs, washing machines…) and then people will have a reason to switch. Because - right now, why would I buy any matter device, when the same one with zigbee exists and it makes my network stronger? Until the standard supports more device types, there will not be as many people buying it, and therefore not many manufacturers going full matter instead of zigbee.
Matter is not dead. It is very much coming alive.
Some vendors have just realized that Matter is an open standard and they can therefore not lock users in ecosystem with Matter as with their own WiFi protocol.
If you are after a Matter WiFi smart plug, then Meross might be a choice.
If you are after a Matter Thread smart plug then Eve Energy is a good solution or if you have an Apple Matter hub, then maybe a Onvis S4 (this one require an Apple Matter hub to be upgraded and upgrades are needed to fix an issue, so check before you buy).
Thanks very much for the replies. I was actully looking at the Kasa Matter Dimmer switches that I had purchased previously. I wanted to see if there was more of a selection from different vendors.
There was little to none. Then I checked TPLink’s sites for the switches and noticed they are not even listed (Canada site). So I was getting a little worried as perhaps I bought a “BetaMax” (for those old timers like me).
I think it’s been about 2 years now since it’s coming out and not much adoption amongst manufactures. So I’m on the fence whether to double down and buy more?
It is new but there is alot of work being done on it. The only Matter devices I have are threee Leviton wall switches and they have been nearly flawless since day 1. Also the Matter integration used to be labeled as “Beta” but it appears that has gone away. Of the HA instances that report their statitics, more than 25% of them are using matter.
I have only one issue -
My HA and IOT devices are on different vlans - with no issue except for matter - for some reason even though I have mDNS reflection turned on across vlans - HA when it is adding a Matter device from a different vlan - goes all the way through and always fails at the last step (adding it to HA) - so those three devices are not yet on my IOT vlan… (I do not know enough about the Matter protocol and how it works to understand the root cause of my issue, I am running only IPv4, not IPv6 on my network, although Matter does revert to IPv4 if IPv6 is not present, for some reason it still does not work across vlands for me.)
I did add an extra interface to my HA instance on the IOT vlan but then stopped and rfemoved it when my router was not able to assign more than one static IP address to the same Mac ID. I guess it doesn’t matter since my HA is not Windows but HAOS - but I haven’t investigated further.
If anyone could supply some technical (and educational material) about how matter fully works in it’s entirety and including specifically across vlans?
It is a simple fact that things like this take years to reach maturity. And I think there was a lot of (perhaps too-early) hype.
Personally I am also suspicious of any initiative where Big Tech players become involved, as they are almost certainly going to arse it up in one way or another (IPv6, needing an app/account to provision a new device, etc.).[0]
One positive is that Nabu Casa seem to be very keen on it, so at least us peasants have a seat at the table as this new standard develops. But the Big Players have become expert at sabotaging open standards over the years, they can afford to send their representatives to participate in these meetings and sneak in whatever nonsense they want, if left unchallenged. Nabu & Co. seem like nice people, so I am not sure how aware they are of this kind of sociopathic behavior (most people aren’t, which is how they get away with it). So it remains to be seen how it will all play out.
For my part, I am not rushing out to buy any Matter devices, my Zigbee and (lately increasingly) Wi-Fi/ESPHome devices are working just fine (and those are good examples of mature ecosystems, also local by design).
[0] We have some Midea U-Shaped A/C units which have Matter support, they pop something up on every phone that walks by them (including our guests), it is totally obnoxioius.
As with any eco system you invest into it when you are ready to do so and there are devices that it has that are not available via other options at the time that you absolutely need for your setup to work the way you want and need.
I run mainly on Matter over Thread and a little WiFi besides that.
I had to learn IPv6, since it has some very special differences to IPv4 that needs to be understood to set up the network correctly.
The Matter protocol is unimportant in this sense, since Matter does not care much about how your network is set up. It just talks to another device as if there network between them.
I had issues with the Onvis S4 smart plugs, because they had a faulty Matter code in the firmware and had to be updated, but the vendor only provide updates through their own convoluted way and that required an Apple Matter hub, which I did not have.
My Eve devices gets their updates through the CSA download ledger and that is the one HA also use, so HA updates those easily.
After I borrowed an Apple Matter hub and updated the Onvis plugs my Matter network have been rockstable nd my new Zemismart blinds connect without issue to it.
Just an observation about the TP-Link Kasa stuff. I have not used anything of theirs but a few IP-based devices, which are now sitting unused in a drawer. TP-Link really, really likes to lock you into their ecosystem. Will they do this with Matter? Who knows.
It’s not clear to me at this point whether Matter will allow this in the end, or remain fully open. Same for the bit about requiring a cloud connection to authenticate when connecting a new device.
I’m in a “wait and see” mode right now. I’ve heard good things about Matter and I’m hoping they remain true after all the big corporations have put their stamp on it. But I’ve been burned before by things going proprietary or cloud-based after purchase.
When the manufacturers find a way to lock customers in their ecosystem, then they will promote Matter. Right now, they are only offering basic, no-frills functions to be able to claim they are in the game. To get the advanced features you will have to buy their hob/controller. Until then, Zigbee and Z-wave offer everything Matter “offered”.
Don’t worry about Tuya based Zigbee devices. Just avoid their WiFi based stuff. Check the Zigbee compatibility list. As long as the Tuya Zigbee dimmer switches you are interested in are listed you should be good: No Tuya-Cloud and usually no Tuya Zigbee Hub needed. Hence they work purely local.
Well, depends of your personal choice. If you prefer ownership, full local control and sustainability matter devices are probably not your first, second or third choice
This is wrong. Matter does allow vendor lock ins and walled gardens
UGH, that goes against the original intent of Matter in my opinion, and was possibly something added due to political horse-trading and/or turf-war arguments.
I have 5 TP link switches. They were the easiest ones I’ve ever setup. The 3-way setup was absolutely painless, as long as you have a neutral line in the box the line voltage is in.
(I do not know enough about the Matter protocol and how it works to understand the root cause of my issue, I am running only IPv4, not IPv6 on my network, although Matter does revert to IPv4 if IPv6 is not present, for some reason it still does not work across vlands for me.)
