My Network Matter in HomeKit (I)

As we have already commented on some occasion, with the arrival of iOS 16.2 has opened the possibility to update the Apple House application and leave the infrastructure ready for Matter. Actually This update came out a little regular. and many users reported problems, invitations to family members, houses that disappeared and could not be managed… a rag, the case is that Apple suspended the possibility of updating the House.

Updating the home app and HomeKit architecture

Since I’m a brain-brain, I actualized as soon as it was possible despite all the problems people were reporting.… and I was lucky it went well. However, by updating the app architecture, with all the migration process it said, all the time it took and which also included the updating of HomePod as a central accessory, I didn’t notice anything.. Everything was going exactly as well… or as bad, but 0 changes.

In a few days, the people of Eve posted a website where you could sign up for Eve’s beta firmware on the devices and make them compatible with Matter. You know that many of Eve’s devices are threatened, which means that at some point they will be compatible with Matter, but until then the devices were connected through the new protocol without even being compatible with Matter.

The point is, I actualized Eve’s app from TestFlight, the Bit Program of the App Store, and when I made login and all the devices appeared He also gave me the option to update Eve’s cams with the beta version of Matter’s firmware… and again the same thing, as I am a debrain and wanted to tell you, as I actualized door sensors and smart plugs.

Although in principle everything worked just as well, there was no significant change. Yeah, now the devices are Matter which means they can be connected to any Matter service, in fact. when we enter the device tells us which services it is connected to, in my case to Apple Home (as Apple key) and Home Assistant. This second part I will tell you soon.

The good thing about this is that the device is visible from both platforms without doing anything between them, there is no need for a bridge or integration into Home Assistant as needed so far, simply the device is able to connect to both and can be used from both. I have not noticed any difference between turning on an updated Eve plug to Matter from Home or from Home Assistant, both work as well.

Some devices disappear from the Home App

But As the firmware is beta and they already warned us that some things could fail… for they are actually doing it.. I have several door sensors that disappear from House, dragging notifications and automations, of course, as when you delete a device you leave the automations on the list of automations but it disappears the device, which does not work… but there it is. When a device disconnects from the network but does not disappear, nothing happens, when it reconnects because the automation is still working.

But to me I completely disappeared as if we had it removed. It happens to me for example with the door opening sensor that I have at the home entrance… and it’s a bitch because I have a lot of automations with this sensor! For example, if it is at night and I go into the house, turn on the lamp in the living room at 50% and turn it off at 4 minutes. If I’m coming home after running or from the gym and it’s cold, it turns on the bathroom heater when I come in, so as long as I take off the slippers and so on because the bathroom is heating up. Not to mention the notifications, when I’m not home and the door opens, I get a notification c

Rhythtic. But if I’m not at home but there’s my wife, for example, because I only get the normal notification without being critical, that is, if I have my cell phone in silence or in some way of no- I don’t understand because I don’t need to know in real time.

And of course all this goes away when the device goes away. All notifications are deleted, automations, etc. Even the name and type of sensor. When it reappears (may be a while or may be 2 days) it appears with the default name and the default type (contact sensor) and I have to recreate it all.

The funny thing is, this It only happens to me at home, I mean, at HomeKit, it doesn’t happen to me at Home Assistant. And it’s also rare that in Eve’s app it doesn’t pass, that sensor never disappears, it’s just House that doesn’t see it for whatever reason. And even more curious is that it doesn’t happen with everyone or there’s a concrete pattern. I thought that, being in beta, the firmware was being very updated, and that’s what made it go away, but no, it hasn’t been updated so much… and it’s also done it on all the door sensors I have and not all of them have disappeared.

You can imagine that the third time it happened to me, I mapped all the notifications and automations related to that sensor to Home Assistant and since then zero problems. And you’ll say, but how could you connect it to Home Assistant if it’s Matter and it connects by threat and Home Assistant can’t stand that even because it doesn’t have the physical antenna? Hey, very good question, I’m so glad you do it to me! I’ll tell you more calmly but it’s because I bought the skyconnect, a USB dongle like the typical Sonoff we’ve talked about many times but it includes zigbee and threaten connectivity., so that it is possible to detect the devices threaten and

connect to them from Home Assistant. I bought it in https: / / www.electropolis.es / home-assistant-skyconnect-a-zigbee-menad-matter-usb-stick-for-home-assistant-in-mkc-nab-kie-skyusb-752739.html . But what I said, I’ll tell you later.

With the plugs, nothing weird has happened, they’re working well from day one, so I’m using them smoothly. I mean, they’re working as well as before.

So, right now, if we have any application that is able to show us our Thread network as can be the Eve or Home Assistant application with the new Thread integration, as I can see that I have a lot of devices connected by Thread, as are all Eve’s devices, HomePod and Apple TV. In the Eve application we can’t even see which one, it gives us an identifier and the function it’s doing within the Thread network, but you can’t know what device it belongs to… what I did was disconnect them all and go connecting one to one to write down the ID and know what each identifier was to. In the

Home Assistant’s award does tell us which device is each of the IDs and what function it does within the menad network, whether it is border router, router or an endpoint.

I don’t have to tell you that Since the House app you can’t see absolutely any of this, you don’t know if they connect to Thread, Wifi or Zigbee in a simple way. However, if we go to Settings, General can see the Matter Accessories we have on the network and what services are connected to those devices. It doesn’t make much sense that they’re here, the bluetooth devices, for example, are inside bluetooth, I don’t know why the Matters are out of the house app, but good.

The most important thing about all this is that, If we avoid the sensor stability failures that can be due to the firmware or problems detected by Apple in the Home app that made the architecture migration stop, I have not noticed any significant change in the performance of the Matter-compatible devices. It’s true that I like to be able to see them directly at Home Assistant and at Home without the need for bridge-shaped integrations, which I have never liked much since in case of failure because you run out of all the devices behind you… but well, taking that away. I have not noticed more speed or stability than when

two these devices were connected by zigbee, which reaffirms what I told you a few weeks ago that today I don’t think it’s worth investing in a change of zigbee devices for other Matter if they’re working well, but if we have to buy new ones for whatever reason it is, it’s worth it if they’re Matter.

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