Yes it does and does not make sense. I like so many people I use an Apple iPad to manage the automation devices in my house. The BLE, matter set up for Hunter douglas, Apple Devices Smarthings, work on iPads. This APP Konnected app combination do not.
Matter (beta) updates! GDO blaQ, GDO White and Alarm Panel Pro now with experimental Matter firmware
I am now in this same situation. Please post any progress you make thanks . One of my APP responds like you state, the other I can’t configure at all.
I determined that Konnected needed to improve the Matter implementation and went back to the original firmware. Once they make changes I’ll try again. To date I have not seen any indication that their firmware has changed.
We would like to use the panel with the Homey Pro hub, which is why we were excited for Matter. The other path is for Konnected to write a Homey app/driver but my understanding is there is not yet enough demand.
Thanks Mark, Good point. I’m looking for another solution. The Konnected firmware has never worked with my Home Assistant or HomeKit reliably.
we just need to convince Nate to write one:)
Right now the Pro board works just fine with SmartThings. It’s one of the last devices to migrate before we can turn off SmartThings…
Ok I just got back from Chicago where @Ryan_P and I attended the Connectivity Standards Alliance member meeting. Matter is picking up momentum and it was refreshing to see the progress being made!
We also had a chance to dig in a little bit on the challenges that you guys have experienced with the Alarm Panel Pro on our Matter beta firmware. Indeed, we have been able to reproduce the stability problems and crashes that you’ve reported after adding ~6 or more zones to the Alarm Panel Pro.
So it turns out that the Matter firmware libraries are quite resource-intensive. We are running into RAM (memory) constraints on the Alarm Panel Pro after about half a dozen or so endpoints/clusters. Part of the problem is also the memory footprint required by the BLE configuration tool that’s running in-parallel with the Matter subsystem.
Basically, the more endpoints/zones we add, and the more Matter controllers commissioned to the device at the same time, add to the bloat and resource strain on the chip. We talked about ways to mitigate this, which is probably going to require a way to switch on/off a “configuration mode” which would enable the BLE config tool while disabling Matter, and “operational mode” which would disable the BLE stack and enable the Matter stack for normal operation. There’s just not enough RAM on the chip to have both running at the same time.
So, that’s in the queue for @Ryan_P to work on shortly. Once that’s ready, we’ll give it another try and hopefully be able to achieve stability with all 15 inputs/outputs populated as Matter clusters with BLE disabled.
@Mark_AppMyHome regarding Homey Pro – unfortunately Homey does not seem to permit uncertified Matter devices, and I’m afraid that Matter certification for the Alarm Panel Pro is going to be a long ways away. There’s currently no Matter specification for a security system device type, and as far as I know this isn’t on any of the near-term roadmaps. We will continue to iterate on the Matter (beta) firmware for the Alarm Panel Pro which should allow us to bridge sensors, switches, etc to Matter controllers that allow uncertified devices, but we won’t be able to invest the time and money into Matter certification until there’s a compelling enough feature set.
@jasleinstein Your use case with Home Assistant and HomeKit seems to be quite different, and with these platforms I would not recommend Matter at this time. Home Assistant should work beautifully and seamlessly with our newest ESPHome based firmware platform, which has native local integration with Home Assistant and supports all features of the hardware and firmware. From there, you can install the HomeKit Bridge integration in Home Assistant to bridge all of your Alarm Panel Pro entities to HomeKit accessories. This is currently the best way to get full feature support for the Alarm Panel Pro into HomeKit. If you’re having trouble getting this working reliably, please open a new topic thread here or contact our support team directly.
Hey Nate, thank you for the excellent explanation. At CES this year we noted that Matter has appeared to have finally arrived, not perfect, but not some exotic feature, more of “yes, we support it”. Sounds like you have a solid path to getting beyond 6 switches.
What is interesting is that Homey Pro doesn’t support uncertified but Apple does. What are the risks to a hub provider to allowing uncertified devices on? Apple seems to not worry, or maybe has the capability to mitigate the risk.
Nate, Mark, Thanks so much for the update. We just need to know the best paths to take. If you think the most solid solution for me is Home Assistant and the ESPHome firmware thats great. For what it is worth, I tried to use the Hunter Douglas Matter support and it is not reliable yet. Im trying to limit my use of Smartthings. HA is becoming my automation platform of choice to support HomeKit which my family loves. thanks
I got everything connected with both APPs and and Home Assistant. Thanks for the help.
