What impact with the roll-out of "Matter" have for SharpTools?

I’ve been looking for info on how the imminent “Matter” roll-out will affect how my smart home works - and in particular how it will impact my ability to use SharpTools as the main (ideally sole) local-control interface with my home devices.

There doesn’t appear to be much out there, unfortunately.

I know that SharpTools now supports Home Assistant and that at least some configurations of Home Assistant do allow integration of devices that aren’t (yet?) compatible with Hubitat or Smartthings hubs (both of which I use). More generally, I’m wondering about whether “Matter” will allow me to skip getting into HA on top of my two main hub systems while also enabling me to control my Wemo, Ikea and Aqara devices (incl an Aqara M1s hub that now serves as my security system) via SharpTools.

Does anyone out there know what the implications of “Matter” will be for SharpTools?

Any of the hubs that get Matter support and connect to SharpTools should be a win. Hubitat, Home Assistant, and SmartThings are all expected to get Matter support so those Matter devices should trickle through to SharpTools.

Yeah. I was in particular wondering about Zigbee devices that (up to now) haven’t been integratable into Smartthings or Hubitat (I don’t use HA - at least not yet) because of inconsistencies in how their version of Zigbee works. In my case, the issue is with the various Aqara products that I now have operating (and a few others that I have yet to install) using a fairly up-to-date (M1s) Aqara hub that I gather is supposed to receive an upgrade to support Matter. I expect the answer to my question will have to await the actual Matter release and Aqara updates, but I am hoping that the M1s hub will be able to act as a bridge from my Aqara Zigbee devices across to either ST or Hubitat so that I can integrate them into a single interface using SharpTools. Presumably there shouldn’t be a need for Sharp Tools to (hypothetically) integrate Aqara hubs – like it does ST, Hubitat and HA – for this to be possible.

That makes sense. I think the Aqara hub would have to act as a Matter bridge for that to work.

SmartThings is going to be a Matter controller which means it can bring Matter devices in, but it won’t output devices to other Matter controllers because its not a bridge.

So if the other devices either natively use matter or their ‘hub’ acts as a Matter bridge, then I think you’re good.

I saw this on TheVerge: [Samsung SmartThings hubs will be upgraded to Matter this month - Samsung SmartThings hubs will be upgraded to Matter this month - The Verge

I do not understand this announcement. Can someone please clarify?

“…an update later this month will turn Samsung’s standalone SmartThings hubs into controllers for … Matter. The v2 hub will control Matter devices over Wi-Fi and ethernet, while the current hub and SmartThings dongle will also act as Thread border routers… While the upgraded hubs will still support Zigbee and Z-Wave, they won’t be Matter bridges, at least not anytime soon … SmartThings users will be able to continue to use those devices connected to a SmartThings hub, but existing Zigbee and Z-Wave devices won’t be exposed to Matter.”

So, for the v2 hub:

  • Can I add Matter devices and control them through Smartthings app and hub? I think the answer is yes if they are WiFi or ethernet devices? What about Zigbee or Z-Wave Matter devices (if there is such a thing).

  • What is a “Matter bridge” and what does it mean that this won’t happen soon? Can I control both Matter and existing devices from the Smarttings app? Can I use Sharptools to write rules that say, “if a Matter sensor does X then do Y with my existing Z-wave switch?”

  • Suppose I add Matter devices that communicate with Thread. Do I need a Thread border router for these to work. Where do I get one? Once I add this, can I control all of those through the Smartthings app? Can I write Sharptools rules around them all?

  • What is different with the v3 hub? If I wanted to upgrade to the v3 hub, what would that entail?

You can bring matter devices into the SmartThings ecosystem and use them in apps like SharpTools, but SmartThings is not going to output its native Zwave and Zigbee devices to other Matter hubs.

So I think answers to your bullets are yes, bridge=output, v3 hub has thread but not v2, and I wouldn’t upgrade unless you specifically need Thread since theres no migration tool

Thank you @Chris_C. I have an Eero router that will apparently act as a Thread border router. Does that mean that SharpTools will see future Thread devices added to the Eero?

I’m not certain but after reading a few articles it sounds like the newer Eero devices will act as a Matter compliant Thread border router so it sounds like it would translate those Thread devices to Matter which means they would integrate with SmartThings.

Thanks again. Time will tell. I will post if I have occasion to test this.