Where Does "Matter" Fit in the Future of Indigo?

I just happened to catch an article about the new emerging home automation technology called "Matter" ( https://www.theverge.com/22832127/matte ... -explainer ). This is one of those times that I was completely caught by surprise with new geekery, because until then, I had not heard a thing about the research. This is essentially the same way that I felt about Insteon after I had lost hair tinkering with X-10 so long ago.

The Matter protocol was announced barely over two years ago and promises to be a common language for smart home devices to communicate through. It aims to simplify everything about the smart home, from purchase, to set up, to everyday use. Its biggest goal is that it will enable smart devices to work with each other, across platforms and ecosystems, no matter who made them. The first devices are scheduled for release in 2022.

Wow, sounds almost too good to be true and I would surmise that only the developers of Indigo can really wrap their head around the technology. Regardless, in the article I mentioned above, Insteon was never uttered once. So, at this early stage, what is the future of Indigo and/or Insteon with Matter?

[jay (support)]

I've posted elsewhere, but I can't seem to find that post. We always keep our eyes open for new and/or evolving standards. While Matter has a Github repo with stuff in it, it appears to still be somewhat in flux. And there is a definite lack of documentation, particularly for hub-like devices (as opposed to end-points like switches, etc). We will continue to monitor it, and as the spec starts to solidify and more/better documentation becomes available, we will definitely look at supporting it in the future.

Another thing for us to consider is demand: we currently have significantly higher demand for Z-Wave (and other non-protocol features) and seeing as there are no current Matter devices, it's lower in priority. We will need to see some serious momentum before we further fork our attention to yet another protocol. While we do not enjoy spending well over half of our time dealing with Z-Wave devices and their idiosyncrasies and would welcome a real standard, it's what is widely available and what customers want so that is where our focus lies.

I have no idea what, if anything, Insteon/Smarthome has in mind for Matter support. It seems very unlikely they'll use it unless they abandon the Insteon protocol entirely. They have shown zero interest in doing that in the past.

[MODERATOR NOTE]: moved to a more appropriate forum - while the OP isn't a feature request, assuming Matter gains traction it will be, so this is probably the best place for it.

Thanks for posting the podcast about Matter. Very interesting. I hope the implementation exceeds the hype

[jay (support)]

Thanks for posting the podcast about Matter. Very interesting. I hope the implementation exceeds the hype

+1

Call me skeptical, but why does an offering that " will enable smart devices to work with each other, across platforms and ecosystems, no matter who made them." need to sell new hardware?

My knee-jerk reaction:

There's not enough information in the article for me to judge. It says we won't need bridges (eventually), but it also says it doesn't do automation--so we'll still need to rely on "an app".

An app on what?
How does a device talk to the app without a bridge?
What about devices that aren't firmware upgradeable?
What if you don't have have a way to update devices that are firmware upgradeable?
(I know of devices with no spare memory, so they'd have to lose features to support any new on-board code.)

I really hope they succeed. I think a uniform (secure) API where everything talks to everything else would be fantastic. In fact, I'm amazed we don't have one already.

Another article on this: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20211 ... ctor.shtml