Matter: Is there a HomeSeer technology roadmap or even a plan?

[SirCJW]

Being new to HS I entered this space for one reason. To tie everything together in my home. I did not do it for convenience of being able to tell Dyslexa or Eerrie that I need my lights turned on because I am too lazy to go do it myself. Now I understand that if you have an estate with a bunch of out buildings then I am sure it could be very useful. However I look at using the platform in a totally different way. I want to know functional things about my home so if something goes wrong while I am traveling for business that I can be notified and help my wife address it. Things such as the hot tub temp is dropping (kids left the cover open), the garage freezer is getting warm (kids left the freezer open), water is entering the basement near my telco and data panels (kids left the outside faucet on) the garage door is left open (untrusting of the cloud for many reasons I wired in a PGM relay to handle this instead) among other things in the home. I have literally hardwired everything and tied it into inverters, battery banks, multiple path notification mechanisms, etc. For me it is not a matter of does Matter truly matter or do I feel like getting Ziggy with things what matters is what will be the most reliable mechanism that will be up during a power outage or other event (and based on my day job I would rather have a wire than a wave of any kind handling things). I know this thread started on a question about vision and will HS support it, the bottom line is none of these protocols, transport mechanisms or errata will ever go away fully and none of them will truly ever become the dominant universal standard because someone always needs to make money from their own take on something. Need proof of this in the "real" world. I am still supporting SNA. MQ and vampire tap type cables for systems that were supposed to be gone 30 plus years ago. So while I appreciate the discussion and comments I honestly view this topic as what technology works the best for someones given situation and is there a true need or gap that needs to be addressed by implementing another one. Just my thoughts... Your mileage may vary... and even a blind squirrel gets lucky and finds his nuts sometimes.

[TC1]

This. Based on the OP's posting history, he inherited a system that never should have been installed, and blaming Z-Wave or HS is just noise. Given the inferences as to the owner's wealth, it would cost less than the fuel to fly their private Gulfstream back from the Bahamas, than to hire a competent HA company.

Exactly, if I had the funds to spend then I'd just hire a Control4 installer, rather than have home automation take up my time...

[SteveW]

I'm sure a 300 node Matter system in an estate spread over multiple buildings will be easily support by an untrained IT guy who happens to become responsible for the system.

In this case the original system should have been built on Creston, Control4 or Savant and maintained by a professional HA company. This situation has nothing to do with Homeseer or z-wave being good or bad. Plenty of Homeseer systems are as complex and useful as the high end commercial systems. But the difference is the designer and admin of the HS system sleeps in the master bedroom, usually with the primary user.

This. Based on the OP's posting history, he inherited a system that never should have been installed, and blaming Z-Wave or HS is just noise. Given the inferences as to the owner's wealth, it would cost less than the fuel to fly their private Gulfstream back from the Bahamas, than to hire a competent HA company.

At the very minimum, if keeping the current system is the only option, then hire a licensed electrician to replace all the switches or dimmers that are either out of range or flaky, with 700-series products.

[TC1]

I have a different issue with matter - it uses IP. I am ok with cheap Chinese devices in my home as sensors and even switches, but I don't want any of that stuff being able to talk to a computer our other IP device in my home. Both Zwave and Zigbee don't touch the wifi network, and can't communicate with IP to anything lese in the home.

You do realize that all because something uses the IP based protocol format doesn't mean it will be on the same network as your home Wifi. TCP/IP is a transport specification, it does not specify LAN or WLAN topology or frequency range. This has already been discussed in this thread.

For me Zwave has had nagging issues that just take too much hassle to fix. Even trackling down topology is painful because HS doesn't give me a map to see how things are connected...

You mean like this?



Like I said earlier in this thread, right tool for the right job...

[fresnoboy]

I have a different issue with matter - it uses IP. I am ok with cheap Chinese devices in my home as sensors and even switches, but I don't want any of that stuff being able to talk to a computer our other IP device in my home. Both Zwave and Zigbee don't touch the wifi network, and can't communicate with IP to anything lese in the home. The gateways, either HS for Zwave or Conbee for Zigbee are more trusted, esp the Conbee case where it's open source. What's worse than it talking IP is that it will likely be cloud native. So that means I can't even do what I do with my Dahua security cameras, where they sit on a dedicated VLAN, and my pfsense firewall only let's them ask for time, and DHCP requests, and won't let them do anything else. The Blue-Iris NVR can connect to them, and nothing else can. That isn't as good as zigbee, but reasonable, but if cloud connectivity were required, then I could do that level of lockdown.

For me Zwave has had nagging issues that just take too much hassle to fix. Even trackling down topology is painful because HS doesn't give me a map to see how things are connected... I have Lutron in the house for lighting, but landscape lighting was Zwave, and that's all been replaced by zigbee which works flawlessly with deconz and the jowihue plugin. I have 5 locks that are zwave native, and a dome valve left, and that's it for my zwave network, which is now pretty reliable, but when zigbee lock support becomes more robust, I may just eliminate zwave completely.

I don't think the current focus of the matter group is truly automation, but more "remote control". So I don't think it will replace HS or Home Assistant anytime soon, but integration with these products is hugely important, esp in terms of voice recognition and media. Local voice recognition from HS or others will be able to touch Google Home or Alexa, and now Siri is making a new push with 3rd party device support announced yesterday at WWDC. Integration into watches, and TV's via AppleTV or AndroidTV make these systems the center of media consumption, which needs to be integrated into home automation.

I think this is why many people have been upset with the issues with GH and Alexa support by HS. This is now an essential feature for home control and automation. In fact, it's finally pushed me to spin up a Home Assistant VM that is now running in parallel with HS, and HA is talking to Google homes, deconz, lutron, blue-iris, Mitsubishi thermostats and pretty much everything except my Elk alarm which seems to only be able to talk to one system at a time and my zwave devices.

So while I don't think the future of automation is with the Matter folks, deep integration will be increasingly important.

[TC1]

I have upgraded nearly all of my Zwave switches and devices to Zwave Plus and it is extremely reliable. I have about 90ish devices. I have one device outside maybe 100 feet from the house into a metal weatherproof generator casing- and that device is 100% reliable. It blows my mind actually as it is close to a Faraday cage. It connects at only 9600 bps, but that is all I need.

I have never had 300 devices, but if you are doing polling and associations and have lots of events firing, you should expect slowdown. I'd get another Zwave controller-- same as you would a WAP.

Great point about a technology/protocol evolving to solve issues. The Z-wave standards have evolved as problems have arose in field use. While I love my Cooper/Eaton 300-series dimmers and invested a lot in them, it's become apparent I should replace them with 700-series devices so I can get increased functionality like scene control.

The possibility also exists that some 700-series devices might support Z-wave LR through a firmware upgrade.

[wpiman]

I have upgraded nearly all of my Zwave switches and devices to Zwave Plus and it is extremely reliable. I have about 90ish devices. I have one device outside maybe 100 feet from the house into a metal weatherproof generator casing- and that device is 100% reliable. It blows my mind actually as it is close to a Faraday cage. It connects at only 9600 bps, but that is all I need.

I have never had 300 devices, but if you are doing polling and associations and have lots of events firing, you should expect slowdown. I'd get another Zwave controller-- same as you would a WAP.

No point in comparing deployed and proven technology with vaporware.

[Michael McSharry]

Even if a new technology may have success it does not mean that one needs to be on the bleading edge to be a player in the market. HST started as X10 as the preferred technology that was dominate in the 1990's. In the 2000's it was apparent that X10 was on it way out but there was no apparent technology successor. It took a leap of faith with Zwave to become a leader in the integration of this technology. The decision has worked well for many years. As the marketplace changes I expect HST to adapt. It is the business that survives and not a specific in-vogue technology. One does not need a plan, but one does need to be adaptable as the need arises.

[Alex_W]

"There can be no doubt that Matter will become the leading automation technology in the home."

I've heard the same thing said about every protocol developed over the last four decades. Most of them have amounted to little more than vaporware. Does anyone remember CEBus? How about SmartHouse? Both had major corporate backing and both went nowhere. If you drive past 100 homes chances are that none of them will have any automation more complex than a garage door opener or a light or two that responds to Alexa.

There have been very few home automation protocols that have made it into mainstream outlets (they are not "mainstream" by any definition of the term, but you can or could find some products at retail outlets). X-10 did it (Radio Shack), Zibee and Z-Wave have done it, and Lutron has done it. By far the best and most reliable is Lutron, but it only exists as an offshoot of their commercial automation business (residential would not be viable on its own). Z-Wave has far and away the best market penetration and that it is limited at best.

Over two decades ago I worked with a British company that developed and deployed an outstanding IP-based security system for large commercial applications (airports, hotels, convention centers, etc.). It was an excellent product even by today's standards but there were other issues within the company that came back to bite them. My point is that having the best solution is no guarantee of success. Convincing someone that you have the best technology is far easier than convincing them that you are viable in the long haul or that they should part with their money based on your claims (justified or not) that your product is superior to the competition. The price of entry and upkeep is also critical. A Bentley is a great car, but you won't find many in Scranton.

Everything I have seen indicates that grass roots penetration into the hobbyist market is still the path to viability. Most people just don't want or need this stuff.

[sleeve]

Matter > Node-RED > HS4. Done. Next?

When Matter matters, HST can decide to do more than Node-RED. When I ran into a blocker with Amcrest IP cameras, Node-RED. Ring doorbell motion sensing triggering HS4 events, HomeAssistant and Node-RED. If either of these were killer apps, like Zigbee, MQTT, Ecobee, Hue, MyQ, Rachio, Unifi, and the dozen other existing HS3/4 cross-protocol mappers already out there, they would have their own plugin. For now, they're tinkergrade, so they're relegated to Node-RED.

TLS is transport security that provides specific benefits for traffic that passes through hops you do not control. Outside the tunnel, transactions are in the clear within the memory of the device. You don't attack a network wire, you attack the endpoints. As companies we shouldn't outright trust gain more access to and control of IP-based devices built by the lowest bidder so that HA can commoditize, they increase the value of a network attack, increase the options available to attack, increase the number of developers who wrote firmware and mostly understand security, and decrease the complexity to monitor and manage a network without authority.

It's good to see from some of our experts that Matter isn't Wi-Fi. Even with VLANs, I greatly prefer to protocol gap my high value devices from my high convenience devices. Before you invoke Schneier on me, protocol gap exists as one of many layers in cloud and colo extensively.

Matter is a mass market play. This is a niche community with a far higher Unifi and tomato penetration than most of Instagram combined. We might paint a couple of walls with Matter, but it's unlikely we'll repaint the house.

For now, I'm able to support Matter via HomeAssistant and Node-RED or via Node-RED directly. If Matter is just IP over Zigbee, well, it'd probably just take a weekend to refactor the Zigbee plugin.

[gmitch64]

But the difference is the designer and admin of the HS system sleeps in the master bedroom, usually with the primary user.

And they're usually also the harshest critic as well...

[dmiller]

I'm sure a 300 node Matter system in an estate spread over multiple buildings will be easily support by an untrained IT guy who happens to become responsible for the system.

In this case the original system should have been built on Creston, Control4 or Savant and maintained by a professional HA company. This situation has nothing to do with Homeseer or z-wave being good or bad. Plenty of Homeseer systems are as complex and useful as the high end commercial systems. But the difference is the designer and admin of the HS system sleeps in the master bedroom, usually with the primary user.

[alphatech]

I think the power of homeseer come thru from the "brain", being able to use elaborated events makes it powerful.

Not affiliated with homeseer 😁😁

Sent from my SM-G973U1 using Tapatalk

[tenholde]

While Matter is built on IP communications, it is incorrect to keep equating Matter with WiFi.

[TC1]

I swear that I will never wade into these discussions... but just to get it out of the way, everyone here is wrong </sarcasm>

With that out of the way, Matter is a rebranding of ChIP, which in turn is built on top of Zigbee 3.x or greater. Although Zigbee operates in the same 2.4Ghz RF range as 802.1x WiFi, it is in fact not WiFi (i've had to tune my Wifi and Zigbee networks to not interfere with each other). Current word in the industry is that any newer ZigBee 3.x devices that support OTA updates should also be upgradeable to Matter.

That being said, right tool for the right job. As others have said, I've been doing HA for two plus decades, tried every technology. My conclusions:

• Z-wave devices (dimmers, switches, etc) are optimal for load control. Instant status, direct associations, etc make for a very functional house.
  If you want something even better/pricier for light control, go with something proprietary like Lutron.
• Z-wave battery devices, at least 300- and some 500-series, are an abomination. I do have 500-series sensors that have seem to solve the battery drain issues, but these are simple door/window sensors that don;t have to report all the time. I gave up on the 4-in-1 types sensors, most people mask the battery drain issues by powering them full-time.
• Zigbee battery sensors are absolute heaven. Nothing to tweak, they just work (if your Zigbee mesh is designed properly). Extremely small devices (high WAF) that use coin batteries that last over a year. Oh... and they are more than *half* the price of similar Z-wave devices.
• Z-wave locks like Schlage are extremely reliable, my 300-series locks are going on over several years old. Again, proper Z-wave network design is key.

As others have said, HS4 might not be the end all be all, but is a very good integration platform that is not dependent on one single protocol. I can't reiterate it enough, when if comes to the actual devices, right tool for the right job.

One more thing... all of the technologies mentioned like Zwave, zigbee, Matter.... they were all started (in some way) or owned by Silicon Labs. It's probably in their best interest to keep them all going