I’m building a new house (move in June 2024), and was planning to use Inovelli blue 2-1 switches throughout. We are iPhone/iPad owners and want to use Siri to control the lights. To test, I have a zigbee-connected raspberry pi running Home Assistant. It seems to do the trick – I can add the switches to HomeKit via Home Assistant so I can control the lights with my voice, and I can create complex automations in Node Red.
But now I see these White switches that are HomeKit enabled and use Matter/Thread. If I’m planning on running Home Assistant anyway, is there a benefit for me to hold out for the White switches over the Blue? And especially if the Blues will be updated with Thread/Matter anyway?
Going to be hard to say as I wonder how many features will be available in the Matter version. Simple on off will work, but how about scenes or notifications. You may need to wait to see.
I’m very active in the Home Assistant Matter/thread community. In the past month the HA developers have fixed two big Matter/IPv6 bugs that I discovered. I’d love to beta test and coordinate with the HA developers if needed. I also have Apple Home, and currently using about 20 thread/Matter devices.
This is very true! Matter v1.2 still doesn’t have energy monitoring, which the white series is said to support. Eve smart plugs that use Matter have a proprietary extension that can provide energy monitor information. Home Assistant will be adding those extensions in Dec. The spring version of Matter looks like energy monitoring/reporting is being added, if you peruse the CHIP GitHub repo.
I’m building a new house and planning to go all-in on thread/matter. I’ve preordered the thread 2-1 switches, but I’m curious what the current recommendation is for handling fans. My main concern with mixing in the blue series fan switches is that I don’t have any other zigbee devices, so I’m worried that I don’t have critical mass to build out a stable mesh of devices.
I’ve seen the discussions around eventually supporting flashing the blue series to support thread/matter, is that also the case for the fan switches? Or does it make more sense to just leave them on basic switches for now, and hold out for a dedicated white series fan switch?
Inovelli is in it’s infancy with thread/matter. So while the Jonagold will likely come out some time next year, and while Inovelli will likely follow with a fan switch if it’s successful, I wouldn’t expect it anytime soon. So you’ll likely be waiting a long time for a thread/matter fan switch that may or may not materialize.
Regarding flashing, that capability is still being determined. While flashing has been in the blueprint from the beginning, Inovelli has yet to say whether that will be possible.
Got it, thanks! In the near term, I’m leaning towards using something like the Sonoff iFan, wiring up a 2-1 switch without a load, then have Home Assistant control the iFan based off the 2-1 switch events. That’s a lot more moving parts than my ideal end goal, but I think it should do the job while thread/matter adoption ramps up.