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Does Matter matter yet?
Matter is absolutely game changing: it's gotten full support from Apple, Google, Amazon as well as most HA manufacturers.
With Matter you'll see significant improvements to whatever system you use to control your HA because you don't need 7 protocols and 3 hubs and 4 apps to run everything: it's the open standard we've needed with 1 protocol, 1 setup and pick your preferred app.
I already knew what I was going to see before clicked on that link, yet I still clicked on it.
Difference here, everyone agreed on one. Pretty huge change.
I knew it
Yeah, but with Matter you can do everything locally. Maybe we need another standard where they can suck up all the data about when you turn your bedroom light on and off. We can call it "HCA".
While reading that article, I started to wonder about privacy controls that exist within Matter.
It’s sort of weird that every company seems kind of united behind it. That’s sort of rare.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Matter does a lot for those companies, but I don’t know if Matter currently offers any actual privacy.
The hubs and control devices can obviously report back to the manufacturer with any data they are legally allowed to collect. That surely includes network information (including nearby networks), any location or geofence activity, device types, events, and statuses reported by those devices. It’s all the data that could be harvested before, but through one hub. We’ve just obscured the fact that Google, Samsung,or even Apple are doing the collecting behind the Matter name.
And when you give a device access to your network, it can talk to every device on your network and reach the internet unless you’ve blocked it. Does the Matter standard prevent devices from gathering information from other Matter devices, or even from your network/other networks around you? Does Matter dictate that devices may only share data with the Matter routers? That is: are they prohibited from using non-Matter communication protocols? Can a device request that a Matter hub send data to a server on its behalf? Can a device directly talk to an external server?
If data can be collected, and a server can be reached, there’s no privacy to be had under Matter.
The questions above are rhetorical, but without reading the actual Matter specification (which is ‘available’ online, if you give the Matter consortium your information), I couldn’t tell you whether or not there’s actually any privacy, or if this is just a group project to steal user data.
I think the idea behind Matter is the major players (Apple, Google, Samsung) want access to all the devices (and information) through their own hubs, while the smaller players (Belkin, Phillips, etc.) don't want to be excluded by not working with the hubs people expect. (I'm using "hub" loosely here to fit several things.) And consumers don't want to install 12 different apps that don't interact to control their home.
Home Assistant is probably an unintended consequence of this, and may be one of the reasons why they're dragging their feet. It's not that Matter is secure or private, but it's created the opportunity for security and privacy through local control.
I don't expect the Home Assistant segment of the market should be big enough to concern them, especially with what it provides back. Home Assistant can't disappear in ten years the way so many existing apps and critical appliance software have over the years.
You had further questions about Matter that I'm also interested in. Your Matter devices are getting an IPv6 address. Are they potentially capable of independent communication over the internet? Seems this would be impossible to hide though.
Hopefully this will influence better support for segmented networks in home routers. Yeah, Samsung probably wants to collect any data it can, but Netgear can sell a lot of routers by making it easy for you to feel safer
Does the Matter standard prevent devices from gathering information from other Matter devices, or even from your network/other networks around you? Does Matter dictate that devices may only share data with the Matter routers?
AFAIK yes - matter devices can theoretically collect information about other devices in your home. A lot of matter devices use very low power radio connections that would struggle to penetrate walls/etc and it works a little bit like the internet where a network packet has an almost infinite number of ways to potentially reach the destination. So, if you're worried your TV might record the fact that your lights were turned off at 11pm... maybe get rid of that TV.
That is: are they prohibited from using non-Matter communication protocols?
Pretty sure Matter devices can use whatever non-matter communication protocols they want.
Can a device request that a Matter hub send data to a server on its behalf? Can a device directly talk to an external server?
Pretty sure they can, yes. And they need to be able to do that to download and apply security patches.
In other words - be careful what products you buy.
Thanks for your input.
Those are my assumptions as well.
What about privacy?
Matter is a local first protocol. Conforming to matter requires local setup and running
Yeah, but do people actually need home automation? Making it simpler/better will make it more viable for people that actually want it but it feels like the bulk of people think it's a solution without a problem.
Need? No, of course not. But it simplifies an assortment of things and once Matter is more broadly adopted, setting things up fully local will be a massive improvement and future-proofing.
The big players are signaling that they are not making money on voice, so I'm expecting them to start charging or give up (typical Google answer).
A few of my use cases:
- Litter robot is in error or offline state for 30 minutes, toggle power
- Easing of light intensity and color as sun sets daily
- Vacuum when we're gone and it's between allowed hours.
- Return vacuum to hub when we return home
- Turn on lights so vacuum can "see"
- Improved environmental control because I have better presence detection using HA than Nest.
- Turn off power for cable box if conditions are met (otherwise it's nightly updates and reboot illuminate the bedroom at 3 AM.
I thought litter robot was great, unfortunately the larger of my two cats does not. Unfortunately he decided that he does not like them only AFTER we bought a second one, and AFTER the 90 day trial period expired.
Personally I think notification is the potential life changer most people don’t realize. Imagine an easy way to tell when the laundry is done without that godawful buzzer. Did I leave the stove on? Is there water in the basement? Is my fridge out or otherwise not leaping cool? What about my garage door? Is the hose running?
A house that can let you know when something is wrong would be huge. Today, a few techies can make that happen with sufficient time and effort. Matter can make that straightforward for everyone. My Mom could never understand Home Assistant or all the components, but she can act when the house tells her she left the oven on
Want vs need is always blurry, but home automation can fall on the latter side of that continuum for a lot of people. Some people get super fancy with it, but I think most people would like being able to put lights on timers/control them based on events, have their HVAC do specific things on a schedule or when xyz events happen, etc.
I guess people don’t need it. But there are nice efficiency gains when automating certain parts of the home like heating or cooling.
I've gotten into it. There are a few automations I like, such as a single button to turn off all the lights when I go to bed. Or for the robot vacuum to clean when I leave the house.
Even with that, I could totally live without any of the smart stuff.
I would like my lights to be brighter during the day than they are at night. And if I'm sleeping at home, I'd still like enough light that I'm not stumbling over the kids toys when I need to pee at 3am.
If I'm watching TV and it's a bit cold, I'd like to be able to adjust the temperature from the couch... and in summer I'd also like to be able to cool the house down when I leave work (and when the sun is shining on my solar panels) rather than firing the air con up when I get home from work and the sun is no-longer on my solar panels. If the smoke alarms detect a fire... I'd like to be alerted even if I'm not at home so I can check a camera and call emergency services to put the fire out before everything I own is destroyed. And I hate the fact that my fridge uses a huge amount of power at night when my solar panels aren't powering my home... it sounds like this new Matter standard will allow me to adjust the settings on the fridge by time of day which could potentially save hundreds of dollars per year.
Do I need all of that? No. But I'd like it.
The way things are right now, if a device is going to have a "smart" feature, then the smarts need to be in the device. For example some very expensive fridges have a full control system on the fridge that can be used to configure the defrost cycle (defrost uses a lot of power and commonly runs hourly). With Matter those smarts don't need to be on the device - they can be on your phone or your TV or a home server.
adding support for nine new types of connected devices. Robot vacuums, refrigerators, washing machines, and dishwashers are coming to Matter, as are smoke and CO alarms, air quality sensors, air purifiers, room air conditions, and fans.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The initial feature set for the new device types includes basic function controls (start / stop, change mode) and notifications — such as the temperature of your fridge, the status of your laundry, or whether smoke is detected (see sidebar for more).
A benefit of Matter for manufacturers is being able to focus efforts on products and features and not have to build support for multiple protocols or ecosystems or even necessarily make an app.
Taylor Lehman at Google Home said, “We’re working hard to add more support for Matter devices to our ecosystem ... this will take time.” I also reached out to Samsung SmartThings and Apple but neither provided an answer.
Chris LaPré, head of technology at the CSA, explained to me that the effort is designed to fix the problem of ecosystems not directly communicating, i.e., an Apple HomePod won’t talk to a Google Nest Hub.
It has wide adoption among the big appliance manufacturers, including LG, Haier, Samsung, and Electrolux (Whirlpool is not a member; Bean told me they are watching it closely).
When I spoke to Jaeyeon Jung, global head of SmartThings, at the IFA 2023 tech conference, I asked if the company planned to make any of its appliances Matter device types.
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