I recently bought the “SwitchBot RGBICWW Floor Lamp (2040)” and adding via Matter worked like a bliss (searching for the connect code took me longer :P).
Now it is connected, I’m a little confused about the supported features. It is available as a light, I can set colours and brightnes and that’s it.
Is it possible to set effects or other features? Can I track the development around this? I’m not sure what’s possible via the SwitchBot app, because I directly used Matter to onboard (this saves me from creating an extra account, app etc.).
This is not specific to Matter integration, but light entities in general. They have an attribute called supported_features that is basically user-hostile to decipher, since it requires finding the file in the source code (not even in the developer docs!) and manually decoding the bitwise-OR’d feature list. Fortunately freshcoast posted a list five years ago, and it hasn’t changed (yet).
Under developer tools, then States, find your light entity, and see what the supported_features attribute is. Then look at the source code in GitHub and do the math. For example, I have a light with value 12, which means it supports EFFECT (4) + FLASH (8). Another one of my lights has value 32, which means it supports only TRANSITION (32). If “effect” is supported you should also see an attribute called effect_list.
What do these fields mean? The developer docs have a brief description for only some of them, but nothing about how to actually use them. Presumably it has to do with the values passed as parameters to light.turn_onaction attributes.
That said, I have lots of light entities that support dimming but none of them list supported features of an odd number, i.e. BRIGHTNESS = 1. So maybe some of these don’t actually mean anything?
Plus, it can vary for a single device depending on integration. For example, I have a rgbw wifi bulb that supports both Tasmota and Matter integrations. I have both enabled, so I see this bulb twice in HA. For the former, I get supported_features of 36, i.e. TRANSITION (32) + EFFECT (4). But under Matter, I only see 32, suggesting effects are either not supported by HA’s Matter server, or not supported by Tasmota’s Matter implementation even though the bulb (and firmware) can provide it. Curious if your bulb supports effects in which case it’s probably a Tasmota thing.
I’m looking at the Matter Spec for the “Lighting”, about the only thing I see is “ColorLoop”. You would have to dive into the Matter Server’s UI for this device to look at its Cluster(s) to see if the device supports it or not. If it does, then not sure about HA itself supporting this feature.
The supported_features attribute has a value of 32, same as you @peterxian.
So, is this then an issue of what SwitchBot exposes via Matter? That’s a bummer. I will test the light via the SwitchBot app then to checkout what features that exposes.
The product page looked more promising then it is in reality.
On the contrary, based on @wmaker review of the spec, if could be a limitation of Matter in general lacking support for effects.
Matter does allow manufacturers to add their own proprietary “value-add” features which would only be available via their app and, unfortunately, sometimes require cloud/internet access so can disappear at any time. You could try the Switchbot Cloud integration in HA (which lists the floor lamp as a supported device) so see if it gives you an entity with effects control, but be warned that cloud entities can be slow, insecure, and ephemeral because they are not under your local control.
