Open Source 'Matter' Hopes To Make Sense Of The Fractured, Messy Smart Home Sector

from the simplify-all-the-things dept

If you've spent any meaningful time trying to build a "smart home" you've probably run face first into no shortage of problems. Gear is expensive, frequently complicated, and more often than not different devices don't play well together. It's a sector filled with various walled gardens by gatekeepers looking to lock you into one ecosystem, placing the onus on consumers to figure out which devices work with other devices and ecosystems, forcing the end user to spend countless calories trying to fix interoperability issues when they inevitably arrive.

The resulting mess has slowed adoption by those who (quite understandably) find dumb home tech (ordinary door locks, for example) to be the smarter option.

While various standards have tried to unify the space, they've not been particularly successful. In part because the central control of all these devices has been fractured across different standards and technologies (Zigbee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth) all jostling for primary control despite none of them working particularly well. Enter Matter, a new open-sourced connectivity standard created by over 200 companies that's attempting to bring some sanity to the space.

Matter is an emerging communication protocol leaning on numerous existing technologies -- Thread, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and ethernet -- with the goal of letting all of your smart home devices communicate with each other locally, without the need for a controlling gateway and hub. The Verge has a great breakdown on how the standard hopes to accomplish this (namely by being IP-based and integrating with existing technologies):

"Its unique feature is it’s an IP-based technology, meaning it uses the same mechanisms to communicate as the internet. So, there is no dependency on bridges or hubs, and yes, you will (eventually) be able to get rid of all those white boxes hooked up to your modem.

To simplify adoption, Matter will start as an application layer on top of existing IP technologies, including ethernet, Wi-Fi, Thread, and Bluetooth (for device provisioning). This means Matter is not reinventing the wheel; it’s adding better technology to the highways our smart homes are driving on.

Granted this isn't our first rodeo with these kinds of efforts, as this old XKCD comic attests:

This time though there seems to be an underlying understanding that simplifying this mess is in everybody's interests, from the biggest companies looking to sell more smart home gear, to the smaller players developing innovative new solutions. As such Matter is being directly supported not just by Amazon, Apple, Google/Nest, and Samsung, but a long line of other smart home and IOT companies like Wyze, Ecobee, iRobot, and others. Matter should find its way into products starting sometime near the end of next year, at which point you'll be able to see if the underlying promise materializes.

Filed Under: home automation, matter, open source, smart home, standards

You Don't Actually Own What You Buy Volume 2,203: Google Bricking Revolv Smart Home Hardware

from the permanent-software-downgrade dept

Google (Alphabet) isn't making any friends on the news that Alphabet's Nest is effectively bricking working smart home hardware for a large number of users. About seventeen months ago the company acquired Revolv, rolling the smart-home vendor's products in with its also-acquired Nest product line. Revolv hardware effectively lets users control any number of smart-home technologies around the home, ranging from home thermostats and garage door openers, to outdoor lights and security and motion detection systems. But according to an updated Revolv FAQ, all of these systems will no longer work as of May 15, 2016.

In other words, the FAQ notes, users who thought they bought smart home hardware will soon own very pricey bricks:Needless to say, there's a growing number of people annoyed with the fact that a $300 smart home hub will soon be totally useless:

"On May 15th, my house will stop working. My landscape lighting will stop turning on and off, my security lights will stop reacting to motion, and my home made vacation burglar deterrent will stop working. This is a conscious intentional decision by Google/Nest. To be clear, they are not simply ceasing to support the product, rather they are advising customers that on May 15th a container of hummus will actually be infinitely more useful than the Revolv hub."

What's more users claim this wasn't really communicated, but was only something a user realizes if they happen to wander over to the Revolv website:

"That’s a pretty blatant “fuck you” to every person who trusted in them and bought their hardware. They didn’t post this notice until long after Google had made the acquisition, so these are Google’s words under Tony Fadell’s direction. It is also worth pointing out that even though they have my email address, the only way a customer discovers this home IoT mutiny is to visit the Revolv web site."

Obviously this isn't new, it's the new normal. Consumers are pretty constantly buying hardware they think they own, either to have that hardware made less useful (as we've seen with some game consoles), or in this instance stop working entirely thanks to later software updates. There's any number of things Google could have done to avoid customer ill will, from a slight discount off of Nest or other products, or even, hey, an e-mail reminding users that the smart home hubs they paid $300 for would soon be little more than a lovely paperweight.

Google obviously wants these users to spend money on new Nest hardware, but lately that doesn't seem like such a solid bet. Initially the darling of unskeptical media reviewers (thanks to the company using some very Apple-esque marketing tactics), Nest has been plagued in more recent months by a series of software updates that have caused the IOT devices to occasionally stop working (as in, a thermostat that won't heat your house). Company leadership has also recently been criticized as tyrannically bureaucratic, and the company has taken heat as an under performer while losing executives at a notable rate.

So sure, go ahead and buy all new pricey Nest hardware for your smart home. Surely it will still actually work in a year, right?

Filed Under: iot, smart home
Companies: google, nest, revolv