Hacker News Reader

Comment by snickerdoodle12 | Hacker News Reader

Can I sell it without paying a gazillion fees?

Spoiler alert: No. There's a whole bunch of bullshit: https://developers.home.google.com/matter/integration/pair#p...

You can sort of run your own device if you're fine with giving google far too much information and they can block you at any time.

Face it, bigtech has a hardon for closed ecosystems. If they could they'd make it so every computer that wants to send an ethernet packet has a private key blessed by some bigtech cabal which they can revoke, but luckily for us this standard predates this gross new fetish.

View on HN

Do you extend that criticism to USB, Bluetooth, WiFi, etc.? The alternative and current status quo is every vendor developing their own proprietary, incompatible and insecure protocols. Unless there's a better alternative I am unaware of, Matter is a step towards greater interoperability and openness.

I do, but it's especially grating here because Zigbee didn't have this restriction, and none of your examples actually enforce it technically. I have some Chinese USB devices that are very useful but use an incorrect VendorID. But I don't care, they work great.

And besides, so far I've been able to use 100% of my Zigbee devices with Zigbee2MQTT and it's been wonderful.

Matter has nothing to do with Google except they are supporting the standard. If you care so much about an open ecosystem Google Home shouldn't even matter, you would be worried about Home Assistant support.

Well, there appears to be some link. I'm not clear on what it is, but here are the Home Assistant docs for using a Matter dev board: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/matter/#experimen...

> NOTE for Android users: You need to follow the instructions at the bottom of the page to add the test device to the Google developer console, otherwise commissioning will fail.

Anyway, you absolutely should care about Google Home support if you want to sell a device. It'd be ridiculous to sell something that only works with Home Assistant even if I'd personally be perfectly happy with that.

Are you seriously using some footnote about Android as proof that Google somehow has any control over Matter?

I am seriously quoting the home assistant docs that tell me I need to involve Google if I want to test my own Matter device, yes.

Are you saying the home assistant docs are wrong? Please, elaborate.

You need to involve Google if you want to test your own Matter device on Android, which is an OS made by Google. How does that say anything about Matter itself?

Well how else am I going to provision my matter device? Buy an iphone?

The devices you personally own also do not say anything about Matter itself.

There is a guide here on how to provision without a smartphone: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/commissioning-matter-d...

Thanks, but

> This process is a bit more involved but is also pretty straightforward and easy to do in most setups, though it is not officially supported and is intended for developer use.

I'll stick with my zigbee flow of "press 2 buttons"

I think you're seriously being so obtuse about the issue that it calls into question whether you're being honest about your belief with issues with Matter. Zigbee had the same requirements for branding, but they were small enough for Chinese makers to ignore and no big companies cared enough enforce. ZWave is generally considered more reliable and they actually enforced their requirements.

I do not want another crappy USB C type experience to satisfy the zero dollar hobbyist. We'll just end up with zero dollar garbage from large manufacturers named Xhflk.

No, I'm serious. If I can't provision (read: use) my own matter devices without involving Google then... I need Google to make my own matter device. Are you refuting this? Can you explain how and why the Home Assistant docs are wrong?

branding is not closing.

a closed ecosystem means hermetically sealed: nothing gets in or out. matter is just treating their brand with respect. not different from any other industry standard.

if you're saying "I want all industry standards to become governmental ones", well, I happen to agree.

Isn't that true for ZigBee too? Can you sell ZigBee devices (and market them as such) without paying fees?

There are no technical limitations preventing this.

No technically limitations, just legal ones. Which are famously irrelevant to international commerce?

That's a good thing. The only thing these legal limitations protect are the american stakeholders and no one should care about them, they are already worth billions.

You cannot legally certify something as Zigbee with paying a fee. This is the same for Matter.

Then why did matter feel the need to lock it down technically?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com