Lots has changed for me. I sold the airplane (sad), I bought a new house (happy), the kids are now out on their own (happy).
A bit has changed in the home automation space. That new standard I wrote about in the last post has become an accepted standard, and changed names to Matter. There are many Matter devices on the market. I have been working with some of the matter devices in my new home.
As I predicted, the Matter devices each implement the "standard" in their own way. Most are incompatible with each other, and you need to have a hub that can talk to the cloud service that the device is expected to talk to. There are several issues with this poor implementation.
With the device needing to talk to the companies cloud service, there is no guarantee the device will function for any length of time. If the company goes out of business, the device will probably be useless. I don't want to commit my whole house to one vendor. There are better vendors and some not so good vendors.
Not all vendors may devices that are configured the way you want them to be. Tapo 3 way switches need Tapo at both sides. Other vendors have 3 way switches that work with simple toggle switches at the other end. My outside front lights are 3 way with one switch by the front door, and the other in the garage. I don't need a dimmer, or anything fancy for the front outside lights, so I got an off brand 3 way switch. That switch talks to that companies cloud, but for some reason it won't work with google home. It says it is matter compatible, but not so much.
I have various switches and plugs that are Tapo, Cync, and other brands. Lots of logins and lots of failure modes. Lots of risk that one or more will go out of business.
If the devices could all talk MQTT, I could use them with Home Assistant or Node Red without a hub. The device would have infinite life with or without the company cloud. I understand the installation might be harder for the consumer, the cloud could be used to help the install without lock in.
It does seem retailers don't understand the use of home automation. Best Buy has a whole IOT section in their stores, but it is aisle after aisle of cameras, with a small section of switches and plugs. The cameras seem to be needing to be replaced every couple years after the company gets a break in and all the videos are leaked.
I know it seems to be first world problems, and I can usually work around these issues.
Let me know you are reading this.
