Alright, , hear me out—I just brought my old-school lamp from 2008 into the Matter era, and now it listens better than my teenager.
I’m definitely not a pro installer or anything, just a smart home hobbyist with too much curiosity and some dusty gadgets lying around. I recently dug up a few WiFi plugs from back in the day, and instead of tossing them, I figured—why not try giving them the Matter makeover?
Picked up an ESP32 dev board, followed a couple of YouTube tutorials (shoutout to the random guy who sounded like he built Skynet in his basement), and boom—flashed a custom firmware, integrated it into Home Assistant with Matter support. It actually worked! I now have voice and app control over tech that predates the iPhone 4.
What blew me away is how Matter just… works. No more dancing between apps, switching hubs, or praying the cloud feels generous. It’s all local, fast, and plays nice across platforms.
If you’ve got ancient but functional smart plugs, switches, even some dumb LED strips—don’t bin them yet. A weekend project + some tinkering can seriously breathe new life into them.
Anyone else done some Frankenstein smart home upgrades like this? Would love to hear what you’ve revived!
