Project Update: Well, this is not going to be a fun one to deliver, but hopefully the transparency and explanation on what’s caused/causing the delay makes sense and in the end is justified.
TLDR: Mass Production has been pushed back to July due to a couple of factors - MG24 Chips are on a backlog due to a shortage (Aqara has been buying them up and they have first priority in the market due to their size – so we’ve had to switch to the MG21), we have found out you won’t be able to upgrade from Zigbee to Matter due to the size of the new Matter stack, we’re working on Zones with the mmWave chip manufacturer (we did not have this spec’d out initially, but wanted to add it due to some limitations with ceiling fans), and, quite frankly, we’re still experiencing growing pains with the new manufacturer.
I’ll try to keep this short, but succinct as I know the TLDR was probably a punch in the face (as it’s been to us over the past couple of months trying to sort through all the challenges).
MG24 Shortage and Inability to Update to Matter
SOLUTION: In order to pull back production to July, we’ve decided to make the Zigbee version with the MG21 chip as it has plenty of room for Zigbee code and it’s what the source code given to them was. In addition, we’ve negotiated with the manufacturer to develop a Thread/Matter version at no cost (other than firmware development) using the MG24 (as the new Matter stack will not fit on the MG21). We will also allow you to change your order to Thread/Matter at no cost (as it will be a premium to Zigbee) if this is what you’d like. Please note, however, that the features will not be the same as the Zigbee version as Matter does not support everything yet. For reference, please see this article that explains the difference. We will have the same features as the upcoming Thread/Matter 2-1.
Zone Creation
One of the major concerns this entire time has been the ability for the mmWave chip to work with Ceiling Fans. Eric M and I have been testing the alpha samples and wanted to come up with some sort of solution as it just is very limiting if we were to only set a max distance of something before the ceiling fan (since that would exclude the entire room after the ceiling fan).
Unfortunately, zones are not an, “out of the box” solution with mmWave chips, so we’re having to work with the chip manufacturer to develop something that will work which has also contributed to the delay.
We won’t be able to do anything as complex as the FP2, but we should be able to do something similar to what’s posted below:
In the above picture, we should be able to exclude Zone B. Again, this is something we’re working on, so I will let you know if it changes, but for now, this is what has been promised to us as a solution.
Growing Pains with the Manufacturer
I know this one is more on us as we chose a different manufacturer for this project, so I’ll take the blame here. I didn’t anticipate the learning curve and growing pains to take this long as I’ve worked with three manufacturers over the past 7 years and usually we’re able to get in a good cadence within 5-6 months. This one has taken 9 months, but I think we’re finally at a breaking point and have found our stride.
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All this to say, this project is a beast and I know this is the second pushback we’ve had in terms of a deadline, but in the end, I do believe this is going to be a revolutionary switch and I’m really excited about it.
I will share a video shortly of the alpha switches in action – the response time is really great!
Lastly, I will update the above timeline accordingly.
Thanks for all of the team’s hard work on them!
which are what I’m targeting for use with this new mmWave switch eventually!
… would the mmwave switch be able to at least exclude pets? Like ignore things within a meter off the floor?