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| How my first Matter experience went |
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| By Kevin Tofel |
After three years of waiting, I finally upgraded some of my smart home devices to Matter. I was ultimately successful, but there were some twists and turns that I had to navigate.
To be fair, the Matter rollout is literally happening right now. And some of the apps required to experience Matter are in beta status. So I wouldn’t rush out and try this just yet unless you’ve got some time, patience, and the right devices.
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| — An Eve Home device, previously supported on HomeKit only, working in Google Home thanks to Matter. Image courtesy of K.C. Tofel. |
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I used two Eve devices that I’ve previously reviewed: the Eve Energy Smart Plug and the Eve Motion Sensor, both of which are currently Matter-upgradeable. I also used my iPhone 12 with iOS 16.2, a Google Pixel 7, and a second-generation Google Nest Hub. From a software perspective, I have early access to a beta Eve app, which anyone can sign up for. And I used the Google Home app on my Pixel 7 since it, too, was just upgraded to support Matter.
At this point, both Eve devices appear in the Eve app, in the Apple Home app with my other HomeKit devices, and in Google Home on my Android phone. I can also see and control them on the Nest Hub, either by touch or by voice. And that’s where a key Matter benefit comes in because until now, Eve devices were exclusive to the Apple HomeKit ecosystem. Today I asked the Google Assistant to turn Eve’s smart plug on and off and it just worked.
But getting to that point took me a fair amount of time and effort.
I started with the smart plug, which I upgraded to Matter in the Eve beta app. I was warned that once the firmware to enable Matter was installed on the plug I wouldn’t be able to manage it directly in HomeKit. Keep that in mind if you decide to go this route.
The firmware upgrade went without a hitch. Interestingly, the device was assigned a new QR code specific to Matter; an old HomeKit code can’t be used with this device. That presents a bit of a challenge because every HomeKit device has a unique code on it to begin with. If you ever remove a HomeKit device and need to re-add it, the code is always available on, or inside, the device.
After a Matter upgrade, however, that code is rendered useless. And as part of the upgrade process, you have to save or print an image of the new Matter code. But while it might require a bit work to keep all of these new QR codes on hand for future use, you’ll need to.
Continuing the process, I scanned the new code in the Eve app. Unfortunately, after several minutes of trying, adding the device failed. I tried with the Apple Home app as well, but no luck. It took a few helpful conversations with an Eve Home representative to figure out what was wrong.
While waiting for the back-and-forth conversation, I decided to try upgrading my Eve Motion sensor. Again, the firmware upgrade worked fine and I got a new Matter QR code, but I still couldn't add the device in either the Eve or Apple Home apps. I then took a different approach and used the Google Home app, and voila! It worked! The latest version of Google Home does support the addition of Matter devices, which Google announced earlier this week.
At that point, the Eve Motion showed on my phone and on my Nest Hub. Thinking that maybe this might “rejigger” the Eve and Apple Home apps, I tried once again with those. Sure enough, that saw the Eve Motion added to both iOS apps, so I had control over the device from two ecosystems.
I still struggled a bit with the Eve Energy Smart Plug. In the end, I reset it by pressing and holding its LED button for 10 seconds. Unfortunately, the Eve and Apple Home apps still couldn’t pair with it. However, scanning the device’s unique QR code in Google Home did the trick. And after that, I was also able to add it to the iOS apps.
When the iOS apps struggled, I really didn’t expect that Google’s app would work. But in fact the experience made clear why Matter is so important: It opens up devices to multiple smart home ecosystems. If it didn’t, I’d have two fewer devices in my house right now because they simply disappeared from HomeKit and Eve after the Matter firmware upgrade. That’s not me being an apologist for some of the challenges I had; it’s simply a fact.
That said, as the Matter device upgrades roll out, some hiccups and pain points are to be expected. Getting scores of companies to work together with a common protocol for previously siloed devices isn’t going to happen without a few bumps and bruises. Hopefully, device makers learn from early experiences such as mine and improve the process.
I should note that although I didn’t lose any automations I had previously set up, one did break. I use the Eve smart plug to turn on my Christmas tree lights at sunset and then turn them off at 11 pm. The automation is still intact but it’s no longer attached to a device. I’ll have to re-add the plug for automation.
I don’t really mind, though. Being able to use my voice to control an Eve plug with a Nest Hub using Google Assistant has me so happy, I can fix the automation myself.
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| Home Automation on Arm with Matter SPONSORED |
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See how to create a lighting automation device using Arm Virtual Hardware, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and the Matter Protocol. Arm has made the starting point of this example even easier by offering the Raspberry Pi 4 on Arm Virtual Hardware so developers can get started before hardware delivery.
Learn more. |
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| Bluetooth SIG plans to add new IoT capabilities |
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by Stacey Higginbotham
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has a new focus on IoT, specifically on bringing connected Bluetooth shelf labels and tags to retail and other settings. According to Ken Kolderup, chief marketing officer at the SIG, the organization is making plans for a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) standard for electronic shelf labels and discussing what standards ubiquitous electronic BLE tags might need. These are among several efforts the SIG is taking to ready the Bluetooth radio protocol for a larger market.
The SIG's focus on retail also showcases a compelling partnership between two companies that I think will speed up use of IoT sensors in retail settings and which I think we should start talking about today. |
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| — Wiliot's BLE tags harvest energy from power delivered by Energous' transmitters. Image courtesy of Wiliot. |
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Earlier this year, I wrote about Energous and Wiliot working with an integrator to bring Energous' over-the-air (OTA) power transmitters and Wiliot's battery-less Bluetooth tags to an Australian supermarket. The store places the Bluetooth tags onto goods so it can track inventory in real time, prevent theft, and provide condition monitoring. The thousands of deployed tags get constant power from Energous transmitters hung on the ceiling.
This use case has an enormous future, according to the SIG. Kolderup told me he expects to see both exponential growth in the market for Bluetooth radios thanks to changes in economics provided by cheap Bluetooth tags like what Wiliot offers as well as the availability of consistent wireless power. And he's not the only one.
Steve Statler of Wiliot calls this the beginning of an era of "ambient IoT." Unlike Amazon or Google, which use that phrase to mean a smart home that anticipates your needs, Statler is talking about hundreds of millions of sensors that will share data about their location and their environment with nearby gateways. Wiliot already has deals in place to make such tags cheaply, such as the one it signed earlier this year with Avery Dennison, which can now make Wiliot's wirelessly powered Bluetooth tags for less than 10 cents each.
Cheap tags that don't require batteries are only one element needed to make Statler's ambient IoT vision a reality. Having a reliable source of power that doesn't require changing a battery is another. That's where Energous comes in. Energous received FCC approval this year for its OTA wireless power transmitters, and has a partnership to provide OTA power to Wiliot's tags.
As Cesar Johnston, CEO of Energous, explained to me, the transmitters are placed around a building like wireless access points, and can provide power to hundreds of tags. In addition to Energous providing location and state information, it's also interested in providing real-time pricing. And through partnerships with e-ink screen makers, that too is coming to fruition. Stores are already testing ways to update prices as much as 10 times a day.
"Now it's not about batteries," Johnston said. "It's really just about how much energy do I need and when do I need it?" For him, Bluetooth tags or real-time e-ink pricing displays are only a small portion of the market for his company's OTA power transmitters, which could also be used in home, industrial, and enterprise settings for powering any number of devices.
But in grocery stores, it's Kolderup who envisions a store that can drop the price of expiring produce as it nears the end of its life. In the meantime, I see a future where toilet paper ahead of a snow storm becomes prohibitively expensive, or price matching across chains becomes instantaneous. In other words, this is a technology that is going to need some kind of oversight and debate over ethics.
With both of these use cases, there are still a few more elements that need to align. That's where the Bluetooth SIG can play a role. Kolderup told me that, when it comes to OTA-powered sensors in retail settings, the SIG is considering a standard data format so tags from different systems will work together. It's also considering some form of encryption so the data from those tags doesn't leak everywhere. Other technical elements include some kind of standard for how to handle the energy harvesting that provides the tags with power. And should that take place over the 900 MHz spectrum? Or the 2.4 GHz spectrum?
Interoperability at the tag level and gateway level will be important, and according to Kolderup, retailers are already demanding it. As for the SIG's efforts around electronic shelf labels, it has launched a working group to explore options and ideas for interoperability and standards. Kolderup said that the SIG saw sales of 150 million labels in 2022 and expects that number to reach 300 million in 2023. And this is only the beginning. Imagine if every label in each store you visit becomes electronic and capable of adjusting in real time. That's a lot of labels.
Then imagine every item on those shelves also having a BLE-powered tag that can transmit its location and environmental data. Because that's when we start seeing the Internet of Everything. |
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| Episode 402: Google begins its Matter roll out |
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| This week's show is a celebration of Matter actually hitting devices, with Google announcing its Matter rollout and Eve allowing users to update its devices to Matter as well. We're super excited to play with Matter, so you'll read more about it in the newsletter and hear us chat about it next week. We also discuss how Z-Wave's open source efforts have gone, and the first port of Z-Wave technology to a third-party chip. Energy management is becoming a compelling use case for smart home tech given the high price of heat this winter, so we share what might help and how it may change the conversation around connected devices. Then we dig into a new Comcast report on home security which notes that the things you're worried about getting hacked in your smart home are not necessarily what's getting hacked. In smaller news, we cover gestures and accessibility features for the Echo Show, smarter alarm systems, and a new sensor that's itty-bitty. We close with chip news about a new RISC-V microcontroller, a new integrated Matter chip from NXP, and Qualcomm's new LTE Cat 1 modem for IoT. |
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| — Data from Comcast focused on what people think they should worry about and what they actually do worry about when it comes to home cybersecurity. |
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| Our guest this week is Sean Petterson, the CEO and founder of StrongArm Tech, a company that makes wearable safety devices for industrial and warehouse workers. We talk about the company's history of building exoskeletons and its pivot to data analytics and wearables, and then the challenges associated with converting worker safety into an ROI. Petterson makes the case that analytics can drive home the importance of keeping workers healthy despite the costs of the system and the perceived costs in terms of productivity. He gives a good example from a warehouse customer using StrongArm's analytics to send workers home after they meet their quota for the day, even if it means they get sent home early. Petterson says it's simply not efficient or smart from an ROI perspective to keep them working. We also talk about the ethics of such software and how StrongArm tries to make sure its data isn't used to retaliate against poor performers. Enjoy the show. |
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This week on the IoT Podcast Hotline, we answer a listener question about outdoor smart lights for cold climates.
The IoT Podcast Hotline is brought to you by Silicon Labs. Silicon Labs is a leader in secure, intelligent wireless technology for a more connected world. Learn more about their integrated hardware, software and development tools at silabs.com. |
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| Z-Wave hopes open source will matter to the IoT |
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| — Z-Wave has been ported to a third-party chipset thanks to Silicon Labs open sourcing the software. Will this move help Z-Wave stay relevant in a Matter world? Read more here. |
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| Have end-of-year ad budget? |
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| News of the Week |
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The GAO wants better IoT and OT security audits: In a report issued at the beginning of this month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued an 80-page report that recommends federal agencies actually assess how well they are following the NIST and CISA cybersecurity recommendations around IOT and OT deployments. The report points out that none of the agencies called out by the federal government for protecting the energy, health and transportation sectors have developed metrics to assess the effectiveness of their efforts. They also have not yet conducted IoT and OT cybersecurity risk assessments. This feels like a pretty big deal, so this report ought to get more attention. (GAO)
Calling Mr. Robot: A security researcher is calling attention to a new form of attack designed to get information from air-gapped computers. The attacker first loads malware onto a computer (this is the hard part), which enables the malware to use the CPU on the hacked machine to share its contents by using electromagnetic radiation created by the CPU. A nearby smartphone then decodes the electromagnetic waves into intelligible data for the hacker's perusal. The malware can detect what a computer is doing, and is most potent on desktops and computers with strong power signals and minimal shielding. Laptops and Raspberry Pis are harder to hack, but still possible. This isn't something I personally would worry about, but if I had computers running sensitive process manufacturing operations or storing national security secrets, I'd want to know about it. I include it here to demonstrate how pretty much anything can be hacked. (Bleeping Computer)
Qualcomm now has its own Wi-Fi 7 chips for networking: After Mediatek launched Wi-Fi 7 chips earlier this year, it was only a matter of time before other companies would start with their marketing of Wi-Fi 7 silicon — all ahead of the actual certification of the Wi-Fi 7 specification expected in the second half of 2023. Why be so early to the party? Marketing! Wi-Fi 7 isn't going to do much for the IoT as the focus is more on delivering more capacity and managing connections in the home dynamically so as to prevent congestion. In other words, your sensors won't benefit from the upgrade, but your video cameras might. And improved networks are always welcome, even if Wi-Fi 7 routers won't be out until late next year. (Qualcomm)
Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance will use Notion Security for smart home-based insurance: Comcast's Notionbusiness is working with Peril Protect on behalf of Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance to provide Indiana Farm policyholders a Notion sensor kit and potential savings on their premiums. The Notion sensor monitors for water leaks, the opening of doors and windows, temperature changes, and alarms sounding in the home on the same device. Customers will get a five sensor starter kit for free and can sign up for a $10 a month Notion PRO monitoring service as well. Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance policyholders who participate could see potential savings of up to 15% on premiums. Notion has been working hard to bring its sensors to insurance firms and that effort has been paying off with several insurance customer wins. (Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance)
Somalytics' sensors get embedded in a new sleep device: Back in September, I wrote about a sensor startup called Somalytics that was able to turn graphite-infused paper into cheap, accurate sensors that could measure proximity. The technology is still early, but the company has since inked two noteworthy commercial deals. The first is a partnership with Hyundai that shows off the sensor technology in a gesture-controlled door handle. The second is a sleep mask designed to track eye movements for sleep tracking that will launch at CES. The SomaSleep mask is thin, lightweight, and can track REM sleep. I don't have the pricing yet, but I like the concept of launching a new sensor on a dedicated device that can show what it's capable of. The sensors can detect human presence at up to 200 millimeters using electromagnetic radiation from our bodies, making it a cross between a PIR motion sensor and a haptic sensor. It's pretty cool. (Somalytics)
The Eclipse Foundation releases Sparkplug 3.0 for MQTT: Sparkplug, which ensures that platforms that use the MQTT messaging protocol can share their data without a lot of integration work, is getting a bit of an update with its latest version. This version is the first managed by the Eclipse Foundation and seeks to "clarify ambiguities in the v2.2 version and add explicit normative statements while maintaining backward compatibility." Basically, it sounds like it's getting a professional gloss that means it should work a bit better. The Foundation is also prepping Sparkplug for an eventual ISO certification effort that could allow for greater adoption in industries where that matters. (IoT Business News)
How a French city is fighting back against surveillance tech: With sensors and computing getting cheaper all the time, more cities are deploying cameras in the name of safety. And cheap computing means those camera images are stored and easily searchable for specific faces or incidents over longer periods of time. Citizens are slowly waking up to what it means to have your face captured on camera (it no longer is a matter of being caught being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but also a mechanism to gather your image for later training or use with facial recognition software). Activists in Marseille are having none of it, and this article shows how they are fighting back through volunteer efforts to increase awareness and maps that show where cameras already exist. It's worth reading this article to understand why citizens should be concerned about the proliferation of surveillance tech and how they can fight it. (MIT Technology Review)
Planning to add IoT? Get ready for constant maintenance: I skimmed through this article on the five challenges for IoT deployments not expecting to find anything exciting, but the third point is worth highlighting. It focuses on maintenance, and the idea that when an organization deploys what are essentially dozens or hundreds of computers and networks in its factories or enterprises it will have to deal with maintenance. This can include everything from battery changes to software updates and random glitches. In my opinion, this is an understated issue associated with the IoT, and probably the most painful and time-consuming one. I wish this article had more advice to offer other than noting that maintenance is an issue and whatever an organization plans to install, it should have a sustainable maintenance plan, but it's a start. (IoT for All)
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