Matter beta testing

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If there is a more appropriate place to talk about matter, let me know or move my thread if that’s easy to do. I’ve recently started tinkering and have some questions.

I bought a SkyConnect stick, and connected it to my HA instance. I do not have any other thread border routers (maybe this is part of the issue?)

i run HAOS in a VM, I’ve passed the USB device in, HA see’s it, i enabled the dual-radio for Matter support. i do not use zigbee at all.

I figured a safe place to start was to buy some matter compatible light bulbs, since they’re just mildly annoying if they don’t work. Bought a pack of 4 Linkind matter bulbs and started setting things up.

The pairing was pretty straightforward, but right out of the gate, i just cannot get two of the bulbs to pair, and the other two are very unreliable.

At the moment, what I’m looking for is, how do I troubleshoot these things? Is there a log somewhere that I can tell what’s failing in the pairing process? Is there some connectivity troubleshooting I can do?

The bulbs that I did get paired, stopped working after a restart of HA last night, I was able to get one of the bulbs that previously wouldn’t pair, paired, but it only see’s it as a dimmable light rather than an RGB light.

In all, its very difficult to work with because I cant seem to find any way to troubleshoot the devices.

Thanks!

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Hi,
Automation can get complicated, so it can help to understand the different standards and where they apply. Sadly, marketing doesn’t help with this and often glosses over the differences between protocols.

Matter is not the same as Thread.

  • Thread is a low power mesh radio standard based on IEEE 802.15.4 which is the same radio as Zigbee (hence Skyconnect dual-stacking) . Thread uses IPv6 addressing and supports multiple routers, both unlike Zigbee.
  • Matter is a IP-based automation standard that uses Ethernet or WiFi networking for both local and cloud control. Matter can communicate with Thread radios, which is what a Thread Border Router achieves (different transport, but both IP-based).

A Matter light bulb probably uses WiFi IP networking to communicate, so if they are not pairing, I’d question your wireless LAN coverage, not Thread, and not SkyConnect.

The difference between Matter and Thread, ahem, matters here is it changes the HASS integration used to control it, and hence where to look for troubleshooting and debug information.

Searching for Linkind matter bulb shows A19 Smart LED Color Changing Light Bulbs with Matter - RGBTW, 4 Pack which confirms pairing via a phone via Bluetooth, THEN WiFi connectivity via Matter.

So, these Matter bulbs use WiFi, and don’t touch the Skyconnect at all.

As Matter is new, there is a lot of bug fixing happening on all devices, including phones typically used to pair devices initially. Both Apple and Google have made big changes to fix bad pairing so it is important to update your phone - see this video for demos of pairing several Matter devices using different platforms:

Which device are you using to pair with please? Do you have another platform to try? (e.g. Apple iPhone / Google Android)?

Debug is going to get very deep very quickly, as Matter is supposed to just work, so check your WiFi connectivity first, then look at the Matter integration docs.

Basically, * Enable debug logging is a single button on the integration. Understanding the resulting log is a different thing enitrely…

If this helps, :heart: this post!

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i"m assuming your bulbs use WiFi networking (and not Thread networking).
What I have found is that when using HA iOS Companion App to pair a Matter WiFI device,
that the companion App gives the device the WiFi SSID/password of the WiFI network that the mobile device itself is currently using. If the mobile device is on 5GHz, it is likely the bulb doesn’t support 5Ghz and so the pairing fails. If the mobile device is on 2.4GHz, then the pairing will work, but if you move you bulb far away from the WiFi AP, then the bulb will have intermittent problems.

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Thanks to both of you! This is helpful.

I was aware that matter and thread are not synonymous, but for some reason I’d thought these bulbs were using thread. This actually helps me better understand whats going on.

SO, if its handing off the wifi network from my phone, that may be part of the problem! as I have an IoT network that I generally put things on (and HA lives on) so maybe that’s part of the issue. So my first attempt I think is going to be to get them off of that network, and on to the proper one.

Thanks!

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When migrating to Matter and/or Thread, I assume it’d be necessary to enable IPv6 routing on the LAN. Is this assumption correct, or does the protocol accommodate addressing over IPv4?

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thats a good question… do i need v6? if so that might be my problem.

it doesn’t explain why its intermittent though.

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I don’t think Matter needs IPv6, although Thread does use IPv6 addressing (hence why it is a border router).

My testing with an ESP32-M3 worked fine in a IPv4 WLAN, although many devices support IPv6 these days.

ACLs between VLANs / SSIDs would certainly explain issues…

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Yea, i tried it using my IoT network and same result.

Currently I’ve reset the device, and removed it from HA. Now trying to pair it again, by using HA’s “add device” selecting matter, scanning the QR code.

Im using my iPhone, also tried my iPad mini. both of which are up to date.

The light flashes at me as the pairing starts, then eventually HA just reports that it failed, and that’s that.

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Not sure if this will help you or not, I took a side trip away from thread to matter bridging and devices when the folks at Tasmota release the ability for their ESP32 device to act as a Matter Wifi to other Tasmota devices bridge. This work has been very solid and is in ‘production’ with their 13.x release.
blab blab
My point is, if you have a ESP32 device or can pick up one. Flash it with the Tasmota 32 v13.x firmware.

This device can be added to Home Assistant, HomeKit, Google Home and Amazon as a wifi Matter device.

If that is working or not working, it is a good debugging aid as you go further to ‘real’ Matter bridges. If you cannot get this ESP32 device mated to you Home Assistant or say Google Home hub, then you have network issues. If you can get it mated and control it from Home Assistant and/or one of the ‘big three’ then give you an anchor point to figure out the rest of the Matter world…

It is a ‘wild west’ in the Matter world right now, it hard to tell if you have a problem or if Home Assistant or one of the ‘big three’ has a problem. The big three are rolling out changes to their Matter support right now with as far as I can tell any notifications. I’ve had stuff working in Google Home one day and the next not or functionality changed and I changed nothing on my end.

Good hunting! Matter is pretty interesting and I think will be a useful enhancement to the home automation world we are futzing with.

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i dont have any esp32’s laying around, i dont think so anyway. I do have a bunch of tasmota light bulbs. can those be used for this with the 13.x firmware?

I spent a good chunk of time trying to get these matter bulbs working, to no avail. I tried joining my phone (and my ipad, and then an andoid tablet i have) to my IOT network, and then setting up the bulb in HA, no dice, every time, with every bulb, it tells me “something went wrong” which is enfuriatingly vague and unhelpful. I looked up the hard reset procedure for the bulbs (power off, and on again 6 times) and did that several times on different bulbs, no better.

If I use the app that linkind suggests, “aidot” the bulbs pair perfectly, but then don’t work with HA, so that’s useless to me.

The truly aggravating thing is, that i had two of my 4 bulbs working, and they just stopped, and now I cant get them setup again.

For now, ive put them all back in the box, and theyre in my closet. if theyre lucky, ill get motivated to try again and they wont spend the rest of their existence forgotten about on a shelf.

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Did not say the make and model of your Tasmota light bulbs. Most Tasmota light bulbs use the ESP8266 family of chips so those do NOT work, there are a few ESP32 Tasmota light bulbs. First link below is a good database of many ESP8266 and ESP32 based Tasmota devices, 2nd link below is a subset of the list showing just devices that are ESP32 based and Tasmota compatible.

Again, I would HIGHLY recommend picking up for very low price one or more ESP32 Tasmota boards or devices to have in your electronics tool chest. These boards are also compatible with the ESPHome firmware, so you have many options available to use as ‘local only control’ in your home.

As I said, IMHO, the Matter stuff is very new and evolving daily. It is not ready for prime time but as I said it will evolve to a solid tool in the ‘local only’ home automation evnironment in the coming years. I looked at your bulbs on Amazon, and beside the fact they cost double their non Matter bulbs. They are RGB only, this as I understand it is a prime example of the infancy of Matter. As I understand the current version of the Matter specifications, it does not support bulbs that are both RGB and CCW. The current spec only support bulbs that are RGB only or CCW only no combo. And IMHO, in your average mainstream home use case, there are few uses for RGB only bulbs in the home.

Unless, you have a need to control devices directly from more than one home automation controller today, or have the ‘its new and i like to beat my head against the latest technology’ (as i do :wink: ) symptoms, you will be much better served by devices with more evolved universes today such as zigbee, tasmota or espHome. Good hunting!

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This is it, exactly. :wink: I wanted to give matter a try, and figured some lights was a pretty low-stakes gamble.

My usual light bulb is the Athom smart home tasmota bulb. Ive got some of the 7w’s and some of the 15w’s around the house. Ive never looked into which esp is in them, but I suspect that they are 8266’s.

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I was testing matter with the v13 tasmota on an esp32 rgbcw bulb.
Seems like only rgb control shows up in alexa/google assistant (no color temp)
I take it that’s the limitation for now?

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Yes, I got my information on this point mostly from the smart folks working the Tasmota 32 bridge. I have tried a couple attempts at wading through the Matter specification, however that is not easy.

Maybe there is a paragraph somewhere in the Matter specs that makes RGBCCW builbs work and is yet to be found. However, the indications are no. The fact that companies like this Linkind that is cited here are hawking 60 watt equiv RGB bulbs ‘Matter’ for USD 15 each is a real wow/ouch. And companies like Hue pulling back on Matter in their devices, makes sense in this context, tough for Hue to offer one of their super fancy/nice/expensive bulbs in a Matter form that does less then in the Zigbee form.

Interested how you are finding the Tasmota32 Matter bridge stuff? I think the folks at Tamsota have done a super job on this. The value of this route is yet to be full appreciated IMHO.