Belkin's Smart Home Brand Wemo Is Backing Away From Matter (theverge.com) 40
Wemo, Belkin's smart home company, has paused development of Matter smart home devices. The Verge reports: In an email exchange, Jen Wei, Vice President of Global Communications and Corporate Development at Belkin, confirmed that, while the company remains convinced that "Matter will have a significantly positive impact on the smart home industry," it has decided to "take a big step back, regroup, and rethink'' its approach to the smart home. Wei went on to write that Wemo will bring new Matter products to market when it can find a way to differentiate them. It seems like Wemo might be concerned its smart home gear is becoming commoditized.
During CES 2022, Wemo announced it would bring Thread-compatible, Matter-compliant products to market when that new standard officially arrived. At the time, it was expected that the new connectivity standard, which promised to once and for all tear down the walls that have sequestered ecosystems away from one another, would launch in the middle of 2022 after two years of frustrating delays -- but Matter was again pushed back. As the year wore on, Wemo indeed updated a product to use Thread, the primary wireless protocol beneath the Matter standard that enables Wi-Fi-free local control of smart devices, and released a new Thread-compatible smart dimmer. Curiously, none of the new products -- a light switch, dimmer switch, plug, and a stick-on-the-wall three-button scene controller -- are slated for future Matter support. With the news, Wemo is tapping the brakes on Matter. And we probably won't get those updated versions it announced last year, either.
While the existing Thread devices from Wemo come with many of the important benefits of Matter -- exclusively local control with no direct access to your home network, fast operation, and easy setup that cuts out your Wi-Fi router as the middleman -- they lack the most crucial feature, the central problem Matter is to solve: near-universal smart home platform compatibility. These Thread devices only work with Apple HomeKit. But it's pretty hard for companies like Wemo to stand out in a field full of cheap IoT junk that costs half the price to do the same thing, as far as most normal people are concerned. Sure, maybe they're less secure, but many people willingly put an internet-connected microphone in their home, too. They probably don't care about the possible security issues with their light switch.
During CES 2022, Wemo announced it would bring Thread-compatible, Matter-compliant products to market when that new standard officially arrived. At the time, it was expected that the new connectivity standard, which promised to once and for all tear down the walls that have sequestered ecosystems away from one another, would launch in the middle of 2022 after two years of frustrating delays -- but Matter was again pushed back. As the year wore on, Wemo indeed updated a product to use Thread, the primary wireless protocol beneath the Matter standard that enables Wi-Fi-free local control of smart devices, and released a new Thread-compatible smart dimmer. Curiously, none of the new products -- a light switch, dimmer switch, plug, and a stick-on-the-wall three-button scene controller -- are slated for future Matter support. With the news, Wemo is tapping the brakes on Matter. And we probably won't get those updated versions it announced last year, either.
While the existing Thread devices from Wemo come with many of the important benefits of Matter -- exclusively local control with no direct access to your home network, fast operation, and easy setup that cuts out your Wi-Fi router as the middleman -- they lack the most crucial feature, the central problem Matter is to solve: near-universal smart home platform compatibility. These Thread devices only work with Apple HomeKit. But it's pretty hard for companies like Wemo to stand out in a field full of cheap IoT junk that costs half the price to do the same thing, as far as most normal people are concerned. Sure, maybe they're less secure, but many people willingly put an internet-connected microphone in their home, too. They probably don't care about the possible security issues with their light switch.
So, they are, anti-matter? (Score:5, Funny)
Standard Model of Marketing Physics (Score:3)
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They're aiming to be a real disruptor in this space.
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Nah - I didn't even know that Belkin / Wemo were into the IoT market so the real reason may be that they just weren't having an acceptable price/performance rate for consumers in general.
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No, with this move, they just don't matter.
OH NO (Score:4, Insightful)
"It seems like Wemo might be concerned its smart home gear is becoming commoditized."
Oh no, don't give us less expensive devices that are more standardized and interoperable, that would be terrible.
Make sure you cling on to your proprietary mystery protocols as long as possible, Belkin. Lock those customers in while you still can.
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Oh no, don't give us less expensive devices that are more standardized and interoperable, that would be terrible.
Make sure you cling on to your proprietary mystery protocols as long as possible, Belkin. Lock those customers in while you still can.
See, this is the sort of thing that causes my tin foil hat to pique.
It would cost basically-nothing to have enough API commands to make their IoT stuff work with HomeAssistant or OpenHAB or Domoticz.
It might even be profitable to have some sort of tool that installs Tasmota, where that tool trips some sort of counter or reports a serial number to the mothership that voids the warranty, since now that's a warranty that no longer needs to be serviced.
I used TP-Link equipment for the longest time because it wa
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Your tinfoil hat piqued all over the rug! Clean that up!
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We need to lean on reviewers to make the lack of Matter support a big deal, as well as proprietary apps. If you see a review that doesn't mention it, leave a comment.
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"It seems like Wemo might be concerned its smart home gear is becoming commoditized."
Oh no, don't give us less expensive devices that are more standardized and interoperable, that would be terrible.
Make sure you cling on to your proprietary mystery protocols as long as possible, Belkin. Lock those customers in while you still can.
That's kinda how I felt about it; even though I am theoretically less affected due to HomeKit support.
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Oh no, don't give us less expensive devices
Indeed! I would much rather have cheap, disposable junk full of security holes and no hope of any firmware updates.
Less expensive is not better per-se. Sometimes it just ends up in a race to the bottom where the only thing available is utter crap that's at best junk and at worst a fire hazard (especially with companies like Amazon gleefully profiting from acting as a front for illegal, safety law noncompliant stuff).
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Less expensive is not better per-se.
No shit.
The race to the bottom already happened (Score:3)
I have a house full of the cheap Tuya-powered stuff that Walmart used to sell (they've since switched to carrying Roku branded smart home devices). Despite all the dire warnings of using Chinese cloud-based iOT devices, I've lived with them for a few years now and the sky has not fallen. No, it's not really life changing having the bathroom fart fans automatically turn themselves off, and being able to ask Alexa to dim the lights, but it's a nice-to-have sort of thing.
It is also really convenient around the holidays, because no one likes having to constantly climb behind the Christmas tree. (Yeah, I do realize the non-smart way of solving that problem was with an extension cord with a switch on it, but having a big cord trailing out from behind the tree is kind of unsightly.)
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It is also really convenient around the holidays, because no one likes having to constantly climb behind the Christmas tree. (Yeah, I do realize the non-smart way of solving that problem was with an extension cord with a switch on it, but having a big cord trailing out from behind the tree is kind of unsightly.)
I have one of those old school timers..... where plastic pins flip a physical on/off switch roughly when I want the devices turned on or off. Sure, it's not precisely at dawn/dusk, but it gets the job done and was $4. Oh, and no unsightly extension core either.
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They also sell green-colored (and therefore ostensibly christmas-themed) remotely activated relays at christmastime, they are in the same aisle with the rest of the lighting bullshit. They come with a stupid looking one button remote.
Cross Belkin off the list (Score:2, Interesting)
i like their stuff for the quality and they have a decent reputation (especially compared to no-reputation), but Im never buying home IoT stuff again that isn't part of an interoperable ecosystem. i own plenty of bricked perfectly good devices already, thank you.
Is Matter *really* safe from Google's spying? (Score:1)
And that it will still exist when they lose interest and cut funding?
Re: Is Matter *really* safe from Google's spying? (Score:3)
Likewise there isn't any guarantee a particular vendor
Smart home ? No thanks (Score:3)
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Well, flying cars didn't happen and fully automated homes didn't happen to the full extend as advertised back then.
There may be slight differences in technical challenge between defying gravity and implementing a simple communications bus.
As this point of my life, I'm just a big NOPE about them, don't need them tattling about me and what I do.
So you don't know anything about Matter then? The major benefit of Matter is that it is a smart home system which runs locally on your network without internet connection. If you need an internet connection for remote access you need to buy a dedicated bridging device for that. This is potentially the smart home standard you've been waiting for.
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I have a bunch of smart home stuff; sadly it worked better in my old tiny apartment than it does in the big house today. The advantage in the house is remote controllability and integrated timers... but the challenge is obsolescence. I have ~3 year old Insteon switches that thanks to a failed modem and/or controller are now essentially dumb devices. I have a handfull of Shelly dimmers to replace a couple that are more critical, but re-wiring switches is a time consuming pain.
There are a lot of things fro
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Re: Smart home ? No thanks (Score:2)
For lighting, Lutron is the way to go. Rock solid. A little more expensive than most. It can be integrated with all your other stuff iff you want it to by getting the Lutron pro hub. But you donâ(TM)t need to. I never use internet accessible home automation gear. All the stuff that uses Wi-Fi and needs an account someplace: no way.
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Problem is all Lutron has to do is revoke an API key to make your system inaccessible.
This is good (Score:2)
It makes the purchasing decision easier when a company comes flat out and says they want to be difference. No need to wonder if Belkin implemented interoperability standards correctly anymore if they don't even want to play the game.
Seriously though read between the lines: "we don't want to sell components, we want to sell a system, locked in, awaiting our future subscription service so you can turn on your lights".
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Not sure about that. It means that other companies that provide more useful products (like Lutron) are less likely to go the Matter route. Personally, I just don't buy things that require cloud APIs for integration, and I am trying to avoid things that require a smartphone app to configure... although that one is harder to pull off.
But the writing is on the wall: If you are accustomed to selling a $60 device and there are commodity competitors selling similar functionality for $20 you are in trouble.
One step forward, two steps back for Belkin (Score:1)
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I'm 100% with you there. I used to have a few WeMos, but the Eve devices became the way to go for me. They're rock-solid, the Eve Energy models report power usage, and they integrate much better in my experience with HomeKit, even though they are more expensive.
The only WeMo switch I have remaining in service has nothing plugged in to it. It exists because HomeKit doesn't let you directly geofence a door lock (in my case, August) without responding to a prompt every time it is about to open or close, which
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Unfortunately, some of what you describe is out of reach for me. I rent, and don't have direct access to the breaker panel, so I can't hard-wire anything safely (which would require de-powering the circuit to do anything safely). At the moment, all my lighting is Hue. Part of that is for legacy reasons, I started with those close to 8 years ago, and it's all been portable from apartment to apartment.
I wish the original Hue Tap (4 buttons, powered by the kinetic energy of you pressing the button, no batteri
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Belkin doesn't Matter (Score:1)
Makes me dubious (Score:2)
For some reason the story reminds me of the story about the blind girl who got an electronic eye implant that let her "see". (If I remember the original story correctly, it was black and white and very low resolution.) It cost a pretty penny. Then the company went bankrupt and shut down the server. Now she's back to being blind, and she has these dead electronics in her head that are too dangerous to remove.
Speaking of Matter (Score:2)
Like, how can I build an e.g. perl script or ESP8266 thing that acts like a Matter device, similar to building an MQTT client?
Would the (virtual) device somehow need to be approved in order to work with Google Home or Homekit? Do they auto-detect?
Matter seems to be a "proprietary standard for home automation that is royalty-free, with manufacturers only incurring certification costs" according to Wikipedia, which doesn't rea
For lighting: lutron (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s much more expensive. But, itâ(TM)s rock solid, uses its own frequency, and only connects to the internet or other technologies if you want it to. It happily works without a hub. But if you add the pro hub, you can then connect to hubitat and youâ(TM)ve got total integration. I would never use this cheap shut that uses Wi-Fi and requires a cloud account.