I was trying to configure direct matter bindings so my commands did not need to be routed through a boarder router. I was going through the cluster capability’s of the W100 and the P2 Motion Sensor and found out that they do not support “Cluster 30”. Without cluster 30 these devices do not have the ability to directly communicated with each other. This is one of the main benefits of Matter over Thread. Without one-to-one binding Aqara products will always have a single point of failure for the whole system which is the hub.
Will Aqara ever add cluster 30 support to the switches on the w100 or Cluster 30 to the presence sensor on the P2?
I found out by using the home assistant matter server. Once you add a device you can view all the devices capability’s and clusters. This is what a W100 looks like.
From now on I will be using W100 Matter Certification to figure out if devices support Cluster 30. You can download the compliance documents to find out what clusters a matter device supports.
Mind that checking for the bindings cluster is not enough except to know it doesn’t support bindings. If the cluster is available you also have to check which clusters and commands are supported as “client” since they have to match the “server” ones in the target device.
Bindings are kind of a hardcoded automation that you can’t change, it will send the commands that are set by the manufacturer.
For instance, the aforementioned W100 has three buttons but, even if it supported bindings, you would not be able to set the action for each button or what kind of device could it control, that would be predefined.
For a motion sensor you won’t be able to set the behaviour, like the time the light will remain on, or set schedules so it doesn’t turn on the light during the day or depending on certain ambient luminosity. For that you would need an automation, the binding would be limited.
Thank you for your feedback. We will consider supporting the binding cluster in the Matter product. I would also like to ask about the user scenarios for binding. For example, as @ElectronMaestro mentioned, commands did not need to be routed through a boarder router, or binding the W100 with a thermostat for control?
I would like to bind my W100 directly to an Aqara thread bulb, and bind my P2 motion directly to a Matter relay and many more pairings in the future.
This will prevent single point of failure in my house. If the electrical circuit that has my hub on it trips I no longer can use the motion detectors to turn the lights on in my basement to check the electrical panel. This has happened to me a couple time since my circuits are all 15amp. I’ve also had my system go down because of a curios toddlers pulling the hub from the wall.
Direct Matter binding makes a safer more reliable IOT system.
You should still be able to have more advanced logic to have both binding and central logic. For example I could have a direct binding turn my light on, and then use a hub to detect if the light should be turned off once motion is not detected. This way I will at least never be left in the dark.
Excellent example to illustrate my point since that’s something you won’t be able to do .
Motion sensors when bound to a light usually send the OnWithTimedOff command, which is a way to tell the light “turn on and turn off in X time unless I send this again”. Whenever the sensor detects motion it sends the command again and restarts the timer so the light effectively turns off X time after the last motion detection.
The light will turn off when the the sensor decides, not when you want. And you can’t configure a binding to say “I just want you to send the On and never turn it off”.
That just sound like incomplete implementation of bindings. You can have multiple different binding clusters depending on the logic you want. I should be able to pick timed onoff, on, off, or dimming.
No, those commands belong to the same On/Off cluster, you can’t bind specific commands, that’s not how binding works. You bind the cluster and how it works or what commands it sends and when depends on how the manufacturer implements it.
Another case would be the W100, besides implementing the clusters for binding to a thermostat they could also certainly implement the clusters used by a light (On/Off, Level Control) so the center button sends the On/Off Toggle for instance and the + and - send the Level Step to increase or decrease the brightness which seem sensible defaults. But, again, in that case you won’t be able to pick the action for each button.
Why can the W100 not be expanded to have 12 Endpoints instead of 6? They could add 6 more switch endpoints who all have different Binding clusters? Each endpoint can send a different binding message depending on which one you use.
This is a very hard problem to solve. Thats why Bluetooth Mesh implemented the NLC specification NLC Specification ontop of the model specification Mesh Model Spec Every vendor has a different opinion of what a “Switch”, “Motion Sensor”, “Dimmer”, “Bulb” should be capable of. Without stricktly defining how these devices will interact true intropability will never really exist. Matter has some more work to do.
Matter specification is quite strict when definining what clusters/commands/attributes are mandatory or optional depending on the device type.
If any, the problem is that Matter is designed as controller-centric and the interoperability is about devices communicating with the controller, it’s not meant to have distributed automations or the devices running them.
Bindings is just a small side feature for some use cases like the typical wireless dimmer controlling a light that you wan’t to work if the hub dies but it’s not the star of the show even if it’s quite useful or media sold the hype.
Expecting that a climate sensor for thermostats can connect to a light might be a stretch. They could do it, sure, but I find it more probable to launch a wireless dimmer for lights than trying to pack lighting control features in a thermostat.
When I bought the W100 I had no idea it was designed to be used with a thermostat. I just saw it supported Temp, Humidity and had 3 switches and ran on thread. I thought I was buying a Matter Switch witch could be used for anything inside the matter ecosystem.
A switch should be a switch. I can switch on a thermostat, light, motor. There is nothing stopping Matter for supporting more distributed logic, especially since thats one of the main benefits for using Thread meshing in the first place. A system the relies on one or two devices for all the logic is not something I’m interested in. I’ve built 3k node Bluetooth mesh network without using a single hub. It had switches, scenes, schedules, occupancy sensor, daylight harvesting all without a central hub. The logic should reside on all devices.
Matter distinguishes between on/off light switches and generic switches (momentary switches like buttons for instance).
The W100 in Matter has momentary switches that tell the controller the events for single press, double press, long press, etc. There are no on/off/toggle commands, but you can create automations in your hub depending on the event to turn things on/off.
If you were expecting a decentralized smart home platform, Matter, just like Zigbee, won’t cut it.
Manufacturers can get creative with bindings of course, but given none of the mainstream smart home platforms support them there’s little incentive to do so.
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