MATTER protocol support

[mackowiakp]

The Matter protocol is, of course, something new, but over 500 companies have already decided that it will be the leading IoT platform.
This also applies to Expressif, Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, Somfy, Tuya, LG etc etc.
There is even a Matter plugin for Home Assistant in the official repository (although still in beta version);
Question for developers. How do they see the future of this solution at ESPEasy ?

[TD-er]

Matter requires ipv6
So that should be working first before I can add matter support


Matter support is planned to be added for well over a year already.

[ThomasB]

Matter rollout has been slow. Still not much to choose from in commercial offerings.

Given the hype I was hoping that we would have many Matter / Thread products on the market by now. But given what is really happening, I've re-adjusted my expectations. I predict it will be 1-2 more years for a better choice of controllers and devices.

- Thomas

[mackowiakp]

I asked about MATTER because I recently bought a new TV and a washing machine. Both devices are from LG.
They both have MATTER. Therefore, I believe that because the largest manufacturers of various types of equipment have decided that it will be the basic protocol and a common one, supported by everyone, it will become the basic protocol in 2 years.

[TD-er]

Yep, it will eventually.
But right now you only have a very limited subset of device profiles which are officially defined in the protocol.
Think about a switch profile, a light profile, etc.
I'm affraid the limitation of these profiles will hold back Matter adoption and also cause some vendor specific implementations which may fragment Matter support.

The general idea is very elegant.
You have some "controller" (I don't know the actual terms) which is allowed to add devices to your network of Matter devices.
This is done via some blockchain and thus requires certificates.
You can have several of these "controllers" that each share a copy of this blockchain.

If a Matter device has been added, it can be addressed by other Matter devices in your network.
The communication protocol uses IPv6.
For those devices which do not have a network interface, there is Threads.
A new protocol, based on what Zigbee and a few other protocols do. (IEEE802.15.4)
You can have a bridge to convert Matter to Threads and vice verse.
This can be combined as I think some Google Nest devices already have 802.15.4 hardware present.

The ESP32-C6 and ESP32-H2 both also have such 802.15.4 hardware present and I'm working hard to get those working with ESPEasy.
The ESP32-H2 is probably the least interesting one and the most difficult to implement support for in ESPEasy as it doesn't have WiFi. (it does have Bluetooth)
But since it doesn't have WiFi, it might be an interesting one for low-power devices.

So my ToDo list for Matter support:
- Look into Matter certificates/certification
- Add IPv6 support
- Add Matter support
- Add ESP32-C6/H2 support (and ESP32-C2, but that's because adding support for one extra is easier than adding it later)
- Add Threads support

There is however one thing I'm not 100% sure about how to handle.
That's the certificates/certification.
I know HomeAssistant is full member of the Matter committee, so I guess you really need HA as a "controller" to add devices without officially signed certificates.
But that's still a bit unknown to me.

[mackowiakp]

THX for very detailed answer!

[michcfr]

Hello,
I'm very interested by the Matter support with the ESP32-C6. Any idea of its availability?
Thank you,
Michel

Yep, it will eventually.
But right now you only have a very limited subset of device profiles which are officially defined in the protocol.
Think about a switch profile, a light profile, etc.
I'm affraid the limitation of these profiles will hold back Matter adoption and also cause some vendor specific implementations which may fragment Matter support.

The general idea is very elegant.
You have some "controller" (I don't know the actual terms) which is allowed to add devices to your network of Matter devices.
This is done via some blockchain and thus requires certificates.
You can have several of these "controllers" that each share a copy of this blockchain.

If a Matter device has been added, it can be addressed by other Matter devices in your network.
The communication protocol uses IPv6.
For those devices which do not have a network interface, there is Threads.
A new protocol, based on what Zigbee and a few other protocols do. (IEEE802.15.4)
You can have a bridge to convert Matter to Threads and vice verse.
This can be combined as I think some Google Nest devices already have 802.15.4 hardware present.

The ESP32-C6 and ESP32-H2 both also have such 802.15.4 hardware present and I'm working hard to get those working with ESPEasy.
The ESP32-H2 is probably the least interesting one and the most difficult to implement support for in ESPEasy as it doesn't have WiFi. (it does have Bluetooth)
But since it doesn't have WiFi, it might be an interesting one for low-power devices.

So my ToDo list for Matter support:
- Look into Matter certificates/certification
- Add IPv6 support
- Add Matter support
- Add ESP32-C6/H2 support (and ESP32-C2, but that's because adding support for one extra is easier than adding it later)
- Add Threads support

There is however one thing I'm not 100% sure about how to handle.
That's the certificates/certification.
I know HomeAssistant is full member of the Matter committee, so I guess you really need HA as a "controller" to add devices without officially signed certificates.
But that's still a bit unknown to me.

[TD-er]

Not yet.
I'm ironing out the wrinkles of IPv6 support and then I can start looking into Matter.
Recently I added support for the C2 and C6 so the basic stuff of those can already be used, but not yet the Threads support.

[TD-er]

Just some update about the upcoming Matter library for Arduino Core 3.0.x (thus for our ESP32-xx builds using LittleFS)
See: https://github.com/espressif/arduino-es ... 2163084331

N.B. this library has not been released yet.
And for the Thread support (which will be added later) I probably need to change the partition layout (for ESP32-C6) to store the keys in a separate partition.