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IKEA launches new smart home range with 21 Matter-compatible products

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Re: IKEA launches new smart home range with 21 Matter-compatible products

#161

Post by StopDisinfo910 »

niceguy1827 wrote: post #154
cameldrv wrote: post #136

I really like the idea of an open, local standard for this stuff. I have been a little annoyed at the matter standards immaturity still. Two things I’ve noticed is that there’s not good support for very low power devices that use WiFi. What you’d like to do, for example for a battery powered sensor, is to go into deep sleep and disconnect from the WiFi and then wake up periodically and report the sensor reading. Unfo…

I've seen somebody on Reddit using LoRa stuff for the home. The problem with these wifi based sensors is that you eventually run out of IP addresses (yes you could get fancy with subnet setup but still). Another problem is that at some point you might want to swap routers -- I had to swap out a faulty Netgear router, and the re-set was a major PITA. For these reasons I've been moving to Zigbee.

10.0.0.0/8 is entirely reserved for private use. I don’t see any home users needing more ip than that and even then you could just switch to v6 and be done with the worry.

Bandwidth and interference will likely be an issue far before ip scarcity.

Re: IKEA launches new smart home range with 21 Matter-compatible products

#162

Post by WaitWaitWha »

RealStickman_ wrote: post #67
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vendor lock in. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45658056 edit: Feel free to down but the evidence is in the products. Zigbee will work with any other Zigbee device if it is properly implemented. not so with Thread.

Please enlighten me how the ip-network-using mattress in any way relates to a Matter and Thread network

>I can only speak to my experience, certified devices by the largest firms will mostly not interoperate (fails around authN).

>Apple: Keeps Thread credentials locked to HomeKit's border routers.

>Google: Shares some credentials, but only within Google Account environment.

>Amazon: TBD, but their Matter implementation is mostly cloud-tied.

>Samsung: Hybrid approach; still best when used inside SmartThings, their 1.4 update seems to support for joining existing Thread networks. Still have to test it.

>So, even though Thread theoretically allows full interoperability, no vendor wants to be reduced to a dumb router in someone else’s ecosystem.

>there is no easy way to bridge Apple Thread to Home Assistant or Google Thread, even though it is theoretically supposed to be possible from a protocol standpoint.

>If you have such solutions, let me know, because I would take full advantage of it, and will regale your contributions in multiple home automation threads.

Re: IKEA launches new smart home range with 21 Matter-compatible products

#163

Post by microtonal »

lynndotpy wrote: post #160
uplifter wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why you are disgruntled with Philips Hue. They were quite honestly one of my happiest purchases, though I bought them when they were the only programmable color lights available to buy and I would probably get another model today. Was it the dropping of support?

They started requiring an account to use the lights, and support started stating stating that the bulbs will not be usable without an account or the app, with the CTO stating intention to deprecate the local APIs entirely. This flies in the face of why I bought Hue. These are woes I thought I'd be "safe" from when I bought from Philips. I never wanted to create an account or use an app. After spending time setting up…

Do you have pointers about the firmware update part? Aren't they just Zigbee devices in the end that you can connect to any other Zigbee hub? I thought it's primarily required when using their bridge?

Re: IKEA launches new smart home range with 21 Matter-compatible products

#164

Post by cameldrv »

gregmac wrote: post #157
cameldrv wrote: post #136

I really like the idea of an open, local standard for this stuff. I have been a little annoyed at the matter standards immaturity still. Two things I’ve noticed is that there’s not good support for very low power devices that use WiFi. What you’d like to do, for example for a battery powered sensor, is to go into deep sleep and disconnect from the WiFi and then wake up periodically and report the sensor reading. Unfo…

> there’s not good support for very low power devices that use WiFi That's why we have Thread. Wifi just isn't a very efficient protocol for using with deep sleep. The radio takes more power to run, the overhead of connecting is higher, and the device needs a full IP stack. Even with power save mode (if supported by client and AP), the radio is on for hundreds of milliseconds to send a message. Thread has "sleepy end…

Thread is fine, but also wifi is fine. Sleepy end device doesn't work very well with wifi, as I understand it, (from trying to implement it using the ESP32 SDK), because Matter generally wants all devices to check in several times an hour at least.

Take a smart scale for example. Mine uses wifi and is in deep sleep almost all of the time. When you step on it, it weighs you, connects to wifi, and sends the measurement. This does fine on battery because it only gets used a few times a day max, and I think it may power up the radios to look for a software update once a day or something. If it had to power up the radios every 5 minutes though it wouldn't last a year on a charge.

Another example would be a water/flood sensor. The overwhelming majority of the time, it has nothing to report. Maybe once a day or so it should report the battery level and that it's still there. You can still get great battery life as long as you don't have to turn on the radio all the time, but Matter doesn't really let you do this, in my understanding, at least as of the current revision.

Re: IKEA launches new smart home range with 21 Matter-compatible products

#165

Post by imp0cat »

uplifter wrote: post #152
lynndotpy wrote: post #144

Coming as a very disgruntled and burned Philips Hue owner. Only four bulbs, but Philips is a name which leaves behind bile when spoken. Ikea's Tradfri line was very refreshing for being entirely configurable with the wireless remote it comes with. You can connect multiple bulbs to one remote, without ever tinkering with an app or a hub or Home Assistant, etc. Crucially, old TRADFRI communicated from the remote contro…

I'm curious why you are disgruntled with Philips Hue. They were quite honestly one of my happiest purchases, though I bought them when they were the only programmable color lights available to buy and I would probably get another model today. Was it the dropping of support?

It is a shame really, because the Philips Hue hardware and software was superior to the Ikea ones (logarithmic vs linear dimming curves).

Re: IKEA launches new smart home range with 21 Matter-compatible products

#166

Post by oritron »

Most of my current-gen IKEA switches will pop out from their steel cradles with normal button presses, because of the curved back of the switch and the curved cradle it connects to magnetically. They've thrown in die-cut double sided adhesive tissue in what I assume was an afterthought, which doesn't peel from one backer sheet in any of the packages I've opened... Maybe it's humidity or temperature sensitive? After a couple of drops on the ground, some internal plastic cracks and tactile response is lost. I ended up using my own double sided tape but it's not a good user experience. I would bet the new switches don't have a curved back, certainly they've had a number of returns because of this aesthetic choice.

I don't care at all about Thread vs Zigbee (this press release doesn't actually say Thread), beyond the very basics in smart home things you want a computer involved and at that point the way it communicates stops being a big concern. I strongly recommend Home Assistant on a low spec mini pc, beats a Raspberry Pi in ~every metric for this use case.

I've been burned by trusting Matter to mean broad compatability; my Aqara lock doesn't indicate how the door was unlocked over Matter despite showing up in their app, and this is after having to buy their Zigbee bridge because it won't connect to Zigbee devices from other brands. Even with Matter, home automation still needs a geek.

Re: IKEA launches new smart home range with 21 Matter-compatible products

#167

Post by warp »

moshib wrote: post #3

IKEA's Zigbee devices have been some of the more stable smart devices I owned. I wasn't running their hub, opting to run with deCONZ in the past and moving to Zigbee2MQTT in recent years. I do wish the new range would include blinds; the previous generation (FYRTUR) is out of production, and it doesn't seem like there's a replacement yet.

I installed some IKEA bulbs and switches with the IKEA dirigera hub, and had a terrible time. For example a LED strip lost connection a few times, and wouldn't connect on its own without unplugging/plugging.

I replaced the hub with a Home Assistant Green with ZHA, and I haven't had any issues since.

So in my experience each of the devices seem fine over Zigbee, but the hub doesn't seem verify good.

Re: IKEA launches new smart home range with 21 Matter-compatible products

#168

Post by ArchOversight »

afavour wrote: post #97
deanc wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using the blinds with a second gen hub now for about four years. No problems at all. Dreading the day they fail as they’re non-negotiable during the summer.

FWIW I bought some Zigbee blinds from Amazon and they’ve been great. My windows weren’t the right size for the IKEA ones and the sellers on Amazon will custom make them for you to within 1/8 inch or something like that.

Which sellers? I have been looking for custom ones because I have some weird window sizes.

Re: IKEA launches new smart home range with 21 Matter-compatible products

#169

Post by ArchOversight »

niceguy1827 wrote: post #154
cameldrv wrote: post #136

I really like the idea of an open, local standard for this stuff. I have been a little annoyed at the matter standards immaturity still. Two things I’ve noticed is that there’s not good support for very low power devices that use WiFi. What you’d like to do, for example for a battery powered sensor, is to go into deep sleep and disconnect from the WiFi and then wake up periodically and report the sensor reading. Unfo…

I've seen somebody on Reddit using LoRa stuff for the home. The problem with these wifi based sensors is that you eventually run out of IP addresses (yes you could get fancy with subnet setup but still). Another problem is that at some point you might want to swap routers -- I had to swap out a faulty Netgear router, and the re-set was a major PITA. For these reasons I've been moving to Zigbee.

That's why Matter and Thread are IPv6. You don't need IPv4 at all... and if you run out of IPv6 address space, I'd love to see just how many devices/sensors you have in your home.

Re: IKEA launches new smart home range with 21 Matter-compatible products

#170

Post by teamonkey »

seanalltogether wrote: post #51
ifh-hn wrote: post #31

I've never really got the smart home thing, and the shit being pulled with the likes of "smart" TVs and cars has really put me off any sort of network connected device I can't control. How would you use this and ensure privacy and security? Without investing time in becoming an amateur network engineer?

As someone who is a bit of a luddite when it comes to smart home features, there are 2 things that really stand out to me that i would like. 1. Open/Close sensors, I would like to put sensors on my shed door and side gates that can tell me if they are open or closed. I will occassionally leave these open, or the kids may leave them open and would prefer they be closed each night. It's impossible for me to tell if the…

It seems like you have a strong enough use case to justify it!

I started with similar needs and thought it would be frivolous, but now I find it genuinely useful and can’t believe I waited so long.

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