#protocols

Matter 1.0 ships — the protocol primer ten years late

“Matter solves vendor-to-vendor commissioning. It does not solve the multi-hub problem, the privacy problem, or the API-versioning problem. It's the foundation, not the building.”

Picking the Zigbee stack — Zigbee2MQTT vs deCONZ vs ZHA

“If you're starting fresh in 2020: a CC2652 stick + Zigbee2MQTT. If you want a UI included: ConBee II + deCONZ. If you want zero add-ons: any supported stick + ZHA. The three are within 10% of each other on reliability; they differ on ergonomics.”

HomeKit and the MFi chip moat — the hardware tax

“Every HomeKit device costs $2-5 of BOM for an Apple-licensed authentication chip. The chip is the wall. Inside the wall, the security model is the best in the industry. Outside, you don't exist.”

Z-Wave vs Zigbee vs WiFi — a year on SmartThings

“Z-Wave for sensors, Zigbee for lights, WiFi for cameras. If you can't remember anything else from this post, remember that.”

Joule arrives — what a pet microchip actually is

“A microchip doesn't find a lost pet. It identifies a found one. No battery, no GPS, no range past a few centimeters — the chip just answers one question, and only when something else asks it.”

Light switches — Wemo failed, and the no-neutral problem

“An old house with no neutral wire in the switch box rules out most smart switches on the market. The ones that work without a neutral are about to earn their premium.”

Tagg vs Whistle — cellular vs BLE pet-tracker philosophies

“Cellular tracker, $7.95 a month. BLE tracker, nothing a month. But the subscription isn't the real difference — the radio is. One keeps a cellular modem half-awake and dies in three days; the other sleeps until your dog walks past the house and lasts a week.”

WiFi as smart-home transport — the always-on tax

“A 15-device WiFi smart home draws 22 watts before you turn anything on. That's $30/year in electricity to power the radios that command the radios.”

Bluetooth Low Energy 4.0 in the smart home — the protocol primer

“BLE solves one specific problem: a peripheral that runs for a year on a coin cell while still being discoverable by your phone. That constraint shapes everything else about the protocol.”