The Nest WiFi Pro got announced, and I was wondering whether it would be possible to essentially use it as a “radio” from HA’s perspective. That is to get access to bluetooth devices, WiFi devices, Thread devices (and potentially zigbee, although that is not quite supported although it should be technically feasible). Without needing to have internet at all.
I know it is early days, but wondered if there are any thoughts out there?
On new products it’s usually too new to be able to tell most of what you ask - especially with Google as they tend to keep things close to the vest. Google and Amazon both also make it next to impossible to control devices in their ecosystem while OUTSIDE their ecosystem (i.e. control a google connected wifi thing from HA) And the community has come up with all manner of workarounds for that.
That said what we DO KNOW, the Nest Wi-Fi Pro SHOULD act as a Matter / Thread Border Router. This is important.
Why that ‘Matters,’ Sorry Couldn’t help it… What Is a Thread Border Router? (And Do I Need to Buy One?) (howtogeek.com)
With that and Matter Device Multi-Admin, that means that theoretically any Matter device on that network should be able to be used by HA assuming it’s been properly setup and there’s a matter integration for HA that supports Multi-admin (I’d expect it in any implementation so we’re not asking for something wild here.)
As far as the NON-matter devices, that’s up to Google to bridge them over. I’m not hearing a lot in the space on whether Google plans on implementing a bridge to allow Matter to control non-matter devices attached to their ecosystem, (I doubt it’s on their priority list) but without that, I assume it’d be the same as the current state of any other device connected to Goggle’s ecosystem so you dont lose anything.
…if they (Google) implement a matter bridge for the non-matter devices as stated above.