SmartThings Integration

Hubs can talk to hubs in Matter. For example, Hue has announced their Hue bridge will be a Matter certified bridge and expose its devices for Matter controllers to integrate with. A Matter bridge makes its connected devices accessible to any Matter controller on the network/LAN, includes SmartThings hubs, Samsung TVs, etc. Samsung has chosen to only make the SmartThings Hub a Matter controller and not a bridge. So a SmartThungs hub will connect to other Matter devices and bridges, but it will not expose its own zigbee/zwave devices to other Matter controllers (i.e. HomeKit). Yes, its all very confusing, and as Frederik alluded to, the spec isn’t finalized.

Cameras are not included in Matter for the moment but there is no reason why they can’t be in the future but right now, I’m not aware of any work in that area.

For the integration, a matter compatible devices will be able to enable Matter enabled ecosystems. So SmartThings is saying, that they will enable their ecosystems with Matter. Matter devices should be able to join multiple Matter ecosystem at the same time.

I guess there is enough in Matter to do a full livestream session but for the devices to be Matter compliant, there are multiple ways: But for Wyze Sense Sensors, we can make the new hub Matter compliant and use it as a bridge/gateway. There is a provision in Matter to do just that. Since we are using the same processor than the camera (not ESP32) and it is not supported by default by Matter, we would have to recompile the entire Matter SDK to make sure it is working properly. It should be easily doable since it is using Linux Embedded if my memory serves me correctly.

8 Likes

Thanks @Frederik - I appreciate the frankness in discussion on this topic. It is quite refreshing.

Really, I’d like to be able to have an image captured and sent alongside the notification from SmartThings based on a trigger (e.g. motion sensor triggers when home is set to “away”). This is possible with (some) camera integrations on the SmartThings platform.

5 Likes

It sounds like for those of us that wanted to use Wyze cameras as part of a smart home system… we’re out of luck. At least for the next several more years or so.

2 Likes

Thanks for the transparency @Frederik. Camera streams and images may not be supported by the Matter spec currently, but I wonder if you could at least expose the motion and switch capabilities to matter? That way some functionality could be had between those devices and Matter controllers.

3 Likes

There is what I want to do and what Wyze can do. Two VERY different things! :smiley:

Yes, I would like all the sensors, bulbs, plugs and Lock exposed through Matter at its launch time. But for the moment, this is a lot of work that needs to be done. Making the devices themselves compliant is not excessively difficult but we have to build up the expertise and divert some of the resources that are currently working on the engineering of the current products to work on that.
Again, it would be too long to talk about all the work that needs to be done. But there are some obvious questions like: should we keep both wyze IoT implementation and add Matter? That would most likely be possible because of the hardware limitation. So should we remove Wyze IoT and replace it with Matter? Sounds like a good idea but then how do we integrate the device in the Wyze ecosystem… Well, it means that we have to have some other means of communication with the cloud and also have a way of representing generic devices in the Cloud…
If we keep pulling on that thread, we end up with a massive amount of work that has to be achieved before we can even put a Matter device on the market.

The TL;DR is that right now, we are actively looking at Matter. I’m the POC for Matter for Wyze. I’m running several (raspPi) prototypes to understand the maturity and the complexity and develop the expertise around Matter. I’ve briefed the upper management on the business challenges and technical opportunities around Matter. I’ve also started to develop a plan for the adoption of Matter but we have not committed the development time for the moment on Matter because we have a serious backlog of features for the current products for the coming months and to support the launch of the products that have already been committed.

14 Likes

One thing I did not touch on was the API for the cameras. We have been working since December 2018, yes that far out, on adding the support for WebRTC to most of the video products. We have seen the benefit in the last months with Alexa and Google but this is going to open up the possibilities to connect to many other applications.
One of the thing that becomes possible is the ability to display a WebRTC session in a web browser almost natively. Most of the partners I’ve talked to (outside of Amazon and Google) have a WebRTC strategy. So there is an opportunity to have the video feeds to be dispatched. The engineering team I know is working on a comprehensive overhaul of the back end that should bring us closer to an official API. It’s not decided for the moment if we will have one or not but it was not possible before and it is becoming possible.
My 3rd party integration vision relies on people doing the work to integrate with us and not the other way around as it is not scalable in the long run and that requires an official API. Now you know where I stand on the topic. :slight_smile:

12 Likes

A LAN accessible WebRTC address per camera would be very cool so its usable in things like SharpTools.io

4 Likes

After 3 years and almost 900 posts in this thread, we appreciate someone from Wyze finally coming in and talking tech about this topic. Thank you for that.

14 Likes

Thanks for responding. Does the v3 cam have the chip also? I will be waiting to buy any additional Wyze products until I know for sure what I am buying will work with Matter unless you offer some type of ‘upgrade’ option for those those of us that have already invested in the Wyze Ecosystem to lessen or nullify additional costs just to have equipment that is Matter compliant.

1 Like

Sorry I missed the post about Cameras not being included…

I really hope you do consider to include Cameras in Matter as the are extremely important to work with devices and dashboards in a Smarthome Security set-up. Especially when using a dashboard and to work with lighting…

2 Likes

There is not a Matter chip as Matter is a purely software based solution but some of the chips are optimized for Matter or in the case of ESP32 have the SDK compiled and tested as part of the Matter development process.
The only requirement that Matter is putting in place is that the device should be supporting IPv6 and (optionally) Bluetooth for provisioning. So there are a lot of devices that are meeting that criteria. But since Matter is still under development, we have no idea the memory size that will be required, the amount of compute that will be required too, which makes predicting which existing devices to be compatible near impossible.
So specifically on the camera v3, I’m pretty confident that we have the amount of compute. I’m not about the amount of flash memory that we have and I don’t know how much work it will take to get Matter working with the ingenic T31X and last I don’t know how much it will take to make sure that we are not breaking any of the integration that we have with the Wyze ecosystem and the support for WebRTC. We are just too early to answer that.

7 Likes

I’ve been following that thread from day 1 and I happened also to be a (light) SmartThings users ever since Wink decided to mock with what they had… :blush:

6 Likes

Someone needs to buy this man a :beer: :exclamation:
@WyzeGwendolyn :point_up: This kind of information, technical detail, transparency and interst in solving the community asks we should see more of. It is awesome!
I would like to nominate @Frederik for employee of the month :1st_place_medal:

Maybe soon we can see a roadmap showing a timeline of the coming quarters with products, services, features, ideas, partnerships, etc headed our way :sunglasses: :pray:

10 Likes

As others have said…thank you for saying something, communication is a great thing.

I came to Wyze (and Smartthings) from Wink.
Wink is a text book case of how not to it.

3 Likes

I sent your nomination for Employee Spotlight in. I agree with you! :heart:

8 Likes

I’m ok with you ditching Waze… as long as you keep your Wyze products. I wanted to have a Waze integration done but might have to pass for the moment. I thought when you say “Go Home” in Waze, it would let your Wyze home know you are coming back and adjust the settings (thermostat, lights…).
:grin:

Joke aside. I hear you.
This is painful to not have that integration with SmartThings. It’s also painful if you are a HomeKit user or if you are a Home Assistant user. For the moment we are committed to have as much integration with Alexa and Google Home as possible and we are way behind on what we can and should be doing.

Now I have to also take the position of the company. We are very resource constrained (ie. money but also engineering body - btw, we are recruiting) and have to make decisions on what is best for the business mid to long term to stay sustainable and not turn all your devices into book holders or door stops. Launching an integration that will last 8 months is not the best investment that we can do because Matter is expected to be available by Q2 2022.
Both Apple and Google have already have beta support for Matter. Samsung has not officially communicated beyond the point that they will be supporting Matter as part of SmartThings. Investing on Matter right now, vs a specific ecosystems now, is equivalent for us in working on the integration of Alexa, Google, Apple, SmartThings and a few others… But it will also potentially allow us to bring more brands into your Wyze ecosystem and make it even more valuable.

As a SmartThing user myself, I would be tempted to say hell with Matter and give us SmartThings now but as an engineer with 30+ years of development experience, 20+ years of SmartHome experience and 10+ years of technology and business management, the opportunities and the threats that Matter is representing cannot be ignored and I would say should be prioritized over anything else.

6 Likes

I completely understand from a business and development perspective not wanting to develop and maintain several separate integrations when there is a potential singular solution on the horizon. From a customer’s perspective, it’s very frustrating this ticket has been open since Nov 2018 with tons of customer demand and we’re only just now getting some insight, and while still much appreciated, the insight seems that its still pretty unsure what products may or may not be supported, what the support may be, or when that may happen, but that it’s a possibility something may happen in the future.

Also when you say “allow us to bring more brands into your Wyze ecosystem”, I really hope what you meant to say was “allow Wyze products to integrate with other ecosystems”. I think it would be foolish to try to compete with things like Home Assistant or SmartThings, especially given the tight resource constraints you mentioned.

If there was an official API available, I guarantee you’d already have some very nice integrations with these systems that you’d have had to put zero time or money into developing or maintaining (other than the API itself, which obviously already exists for native support at least). I’d also be able to implement key functionality that’s missing in the native support (like snoozing alerts, or turning on/off alerts based on other smart home inputs, etc).

Personally I’m only focused on camera integration. I’ve already made my purchases for other smart home products elsewhere due to this closed system issue, and stopped purchasing cameras from Wyze other than a few to play around with… but to be honest the products are nice, so would really love to return and let you take some of my money.

4 Likes

Nicely said. I believe Wyze made an error in not supporting SmartThings when they had the time three years go. And as for resource shortages, then stop putting effort in new devices we didn’t ask for, like night lights, an RC car and vacuum cleaners. Priorities folks! I know you need to make a profit, but this is ridiculous.

Now would be a good time to focus on your users and work on the open user requirements. Indeed, I think we should have a clear roadmap for what user requirements WILL be implemented and when. And for goodness sake, if you ar not going to support something, then say that! It’s pointless users updating Beta forums, etc, when you have no intent of doing it.

Please improve user communication. Now you have a smart wall switch, can we get one with dimmer and fan functionality? Or are we working on an automated bird feeder and robot cat?

5 Likes