Matter is absolutely game changing: it’s gotten full support from Apple, Google, Amazon as well as most HA manufacturers.
With Matter you’ll see significant improvements to whatever system you use to control your HA because you don’t need 7 protocols and 3 hubs and 4 apps to run everything: it’s the open standard we’ve needed with 1 protocol, 1 setup and pick your preferred app.
Yeah, but with Matter you can do everything locally. Maybe we need another standard where they can suck up all the data about when you turn your bedroom light on and off. We can call it “HCA”.
While reading that article, I started to wonder about privacy controls that exist within Matter.
It’s sort of weird that every company seems kind of united behind it. That’s sort of rare.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Matter does a lot for those companies, but I don’t know if Matter currently offers any actual privacy.
The hubs and control devices can obviously report back to the manufacturer with any data they are legally allowed to collect. That surely includes network information (including nearby networks), any location or geofence activity, device types, events, and statuses reported by those devices. It’s all the data that could be harvested before, but through one hub. We’ve just obscured the fact that Google, Samsung,or even Apple are doing the collecting behind the Matter name.
And when you give a device access to your network, it can talk to every device on your network and reach the internet unless you’ve blocked it. Does the Matter standard prevent devices from gathering information from other Matter devices, or even from your network/other networks around you? Does Matter dictate that devices may only share data with the Matter routers? That is: are they prohibited from using non-Matter communication protocols? Can a device request that a Matter hub send data to a server on its behalf? Can a device directly talk to an external server?
If data can be collected, and a server can be reached, there’s no privacy to be had under Matter.
The questions above are rhetorical, but without reading the actual Matter specification (which is ‘available’ online, if you give the Matter consortium your information), I couldn’t tell you whether or not there’s actually any privacy, or if this is just a group project to steal user data.
I think the idea behind Matter is the major players (Apple, Google, Samsung) want access to all the devices (and information) through their own hubs, while the smaller players (Belkin, Phillips, etc.) don’t want to be excluded by not working with the hubs people expect. (I’m using “hub” loosely here to fit several things.) And consumers don’t want to install 12 different apps that don’t interact to control their home.
Home Assistant is probably an unintended consequence of this, and may be one of the reasons why they’re dragging their feet. It’s not that Matter is secure or private, but it’s created the opportunity for security and privacy through local control.
I don’t expect the Home Assistant segment of the market should be big enough to concern them, especially with what it provides back. Home Assistant can’t disappear in ten years the way so many existing apps and critical appliance software have over the years.
You had further questions about Matter that I’m also interested in. Your Matter devices are getting an IPv6 address. Are they potentially capable of independent communication over the internet? Seems this would be impossible to hide though.
Yeah, but do people actually need home automation? Making it simpler/better will make it more viable for people that actually want it but it feels like the bulk of people think it’s a solution without a problem.
I’ve gotten into it. There are a few automations I like, such as a single button to turn off all the lights when I go to bed. Or for the robot vacuum to clean when I leave the house.
Even with that, I could totally live without any of the smart stuff.
Need? No, of course not. But it simplifies an assortment of things and once Matter is more broadly adopted, setting things up fully local will be a massive improvement and future-proofing.
The big players are signaling that they are not making money on voice, so I’m expecting them to start charging or give up (typical Google answer).
A few of my use cases:
Litter robot is in error or offline state for 30 minutes, toggle power
Easing of light intensity and color as sun sets daily
Vacuum when we’re gone and it’s between allowed hours.
Return vacuum to hub when we return home
Turn on lights so vacuum can “see”
Improved environmental control because I have better presence detection using HA than Nest.
Turn off power for cable box if conditions are met (otherwise it’s nightly updates and reboot illuminate the bedroom at 3 AM.
Want vs need is always blurry, but home automation can fall on the latter side of that continuum for a lot of people. Some people get super fancy with it, but I think most people would like being able to put lights on timers/control them based on events, have their HVAC do specific things on a schedule or when xyz events happen, etc.
Matter is absolutely game changing: it’s gotten full support from Apple, Google, Amazon as well as most HA manufacturers.
With Matter you’ll see significant improvements to whatever system you use to control your HA because you don’t need 7 protocols and 3 hubs and 4 apps to run everything: it’s the open standard we’ve needed with 1 protocol, 1 setup and pick your preferred app.
Yeah, but with Matter you can do everything locally. Maybe we need another standard where they can suck up all the data about when you turn your bedroom light on and off. We can call it “HCA”.
While reading that article, I started to wonder about privacy controls that exist within Matter.
It’s sort of weird that every company seems kind of united behind it. That’s sort of rare.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Matter does a lot for those companies, but I don’t know if Matter currently offers any actual privacy.
The hubs and control devices can obviously report back to the manufacturer with any data they are legally allowed to collect. That surely includes network information (including nearby networks), any location or geofence activity, device types, events, and statuses reported by those devices. It’s all the data that could be harvested before, but through one hub. We’ve just obscured the fact that Google, Samsung,or even Apple are doing the collecting behind the Matter name. And when you give a device access to your network, it can talk to every device on your network and reach the internet unless you’ve blocked it. Does the Matter standard prevent devices from gathering information from other Matter devices, or even from your network/other networks around you? Does Matter dictate that devices may only share data with the Matter routers? That is: are they prohibited from using non-Matter communication protocols? Can a device request that a Matter hub send data to a server on its behalf? Can a device directly talk to an external server?
If data can be collected, and a server can be reached, there’s no privacy to be had under Matter.
The questions above are rhetorical, but without reading the actual Matter specification (which is ‘available’ online, if you give the Matter consortium your information), I couldn’t tell you whether or not there’s actually any privacy, or if this is just a group project to steal user data.
I think the idea behind Matter is the major players (Apple, Google, Samsung) want access to all the devices (and information) through their own hubs, while the smaller players (Belkin, Phillips, etc.) don’t want to be excluded by not working with the hubs people expect. (I’m using “hub” loosely here to fit several things.) And consumers don’t want to install 12 different apps that don’t interact to control their home.
Home Assistant is probably an unintended consequence of this, and may be one of the reasons why they’re dragging their feet. It’s not that Matter is secure or private, but it’s created the opportunity for security and privacy through local control.
I don’t expect the Home Assistant segment of the market should be big enough to concern them, especially with what it provides back. Home Assistant can’t disappear in ten years the way so many existing apps and critical appliance software have over the years.
You had further questions about Matter that I’m also interested in. Your Matter devices are getting an IPv6 address. Are they potentially capable of independent communication over the internet? Seems this would be impossible to hide though.
What about privacy?
https://xkcd.com/927/
Yeah, but do people actually need home automation? Making it simpler/better will make it more viable for people that actually want it but it feels like the bulk of people think it’s a solution without a problem.
I’ve gotten into it. There are a few automations I like, such as a single button to turn off all the lights when I go to bed. Or for the robot vacuum to clean when I leave the house.
Even with that, I could totally live without any of the smart stuff.
I guess people don’t need it. But there are nice efficiency gains when automating certain parts of the home like heating or cooling.
Need? No, of course not. But it simplifies an assortment of things and once Matter is more broadly adopted, setting things up fully local will be a massive improvement and future-proofing.
The big players are signaling that they are not making money on voice, so I’m expecting them to start charging or give up (typical Google answer).
A few of my use cases:
Want vs need is always blurry, but home automation can fall on the latter side of that continuum for a lot of people. Some people get super fancy with it, but I think most people would like being able to put lights on timers/control them based on events, have their HVAC do specific things on a schedule or when xyz events happen, etc.