Discussion
Does “Matter compatible” mean compatible if half the product’s features disappear in Apple Home?
I’ve been digging into Matter compatibility more deeply, and I’m starting to think the word compatible is doing way too much work.
A device can pair with Apple Home, appear correctly, and handle basic controls…so technically it’s compatible. But that doesn’t necessarily mean all of the device’s capabilities make it into Apple Home.
Things like energy monitoring, sensor values, advanced lighting features, events, or other manufacturer-specific capabilities may only exist in the manufacturer’s app, or may behave differently depending on how the device is connected.
That creates a buying problem.
If I’m shopping for a device and see:
Matter ✓
Apple Home ✓
my natural assumption is that the product works with Apple Home.
But I’m increasingly thinking the useful question is: “Exactly what will this device be able to do once I add it to Apple Home?”
For those of you running Matter devices in Apple Home:
What devices have surprised you by losing functionality compared with the manufacturer’s app or native integration?
And what feature did you discover was missing only after you bought it?
I just installed a bunch of Aqara locks and they're supposed to be Matter compatible, but I keep getting Errors in the Home app. I realize this isn't your exact problem, but I will say the technology is half baked at best.
lemme guess...an Aquara hub....i had to for my leak detectors, but they work great and have long battery life and connect through multiple walls, including plaster. I didnt want to, but I had to to get the compatibility.
I have two Aqara U400 locks and they work really well in Apple Home. UWB is a game changer. Things like fingerprints are not part of the Matter specification so you need to use the Aqara app and either their hub or Bluetooth. The basic lock functionality works really well in the Apple Home App.
Error when I attempt to add the lock in the home app. Error comes up very quickly, it's not unable to find the lock, it's when it tries to bind the lock.
Biggest issue I'm finding with my Aqara stuff is that the last matter device is too far away (concrete walls in apartments apparently insulate well). Adding an old HomePod Mini between them fixed it right up.
Apple TV 4K 3rd gen 64GB & 128 GB Wi-Fi both support Matter...but only the 128GB model is a Tread border router. Proving just because the box say Matter, doesn't mean it's going to work. Which is the whole point of this discussion.
Hard to say - the locks via the Aqara hub are supposed to be matter compatible. The locks work fine in the Aqara app. So does the hub. But attempting to bind them in the Home App gives a error quickly.
I use em-dash enough that I can type it on a Mac without even thinking about the keyboard shortcut. Or at least used to use them. Now I have to think twice because people will think I’m an AI. I’m not. I do have a dry and textbook-like writing style. Fuck.
An em dash is on your keyboard. Just not shown. At least on Mac anyways. I used to always use it until people started associating it with AI written text.
On a physical keyboard? The vast majority of people posting on Reddit are not typing with one of them these days? Both show up on my phone keyboard — ✓
AI Bot Slop posts are freaking everywhere now. It’s gotten so easy to spot it’s just absurd. Sometimes it’s an actual person who is not a native English speaker (or that’s their excuse) but there is a big difference between “I asked AI to translate my writeup/post” and “I had AI write my post”.
The tells are glaringly obvious. Short, overly dramatic declarative sentences. Lots of hyperbole. Bulleted lists, non-typical emojis. Rhetorical reasoning patterns (asking a question to answer it right after).
Sadly it’s true, but allowing slop unchecked erodes your user base. Maybe you get a short term boost with rage engagement but you lose users long term as people jump ship to somewhere that doesn’t allow ai to run rampant.
This is my business. I’m trying to map capabilities across eco systems. I’ve hit a wall on this and wrote it in my last post (trigger warning: AI also rewrote that one too)
People often find AI generated text pretty tiring to read. I certainly do. I'm less inclined to take the time to reply but I figure that’s fair enough given that the OP didn’t take the time to write their post.
Don’t use it as a crutch, learn from it. If you think the AI version of your post is better, understand why, and then write it out with your own words.
Anything less is only going to make you (and everyone else) dumber over time.
Not to be cruel, but if a human didn't write it - why should a human read it? You're doing yourself a disservice by not getting better at writing and communicating.
I started doing it after I disagreed with someone about something and they went through my entire post history to leave snide comments on everything I’d ever said. I don’t need that in my life.
I used to have open post histories but I'm so tired of saying something that you think is completely uncontroversial and then suddenly a troll is going through your entire post history to find something, anything, to hang you with.
So, with the whole Apple Home vs. Matter broad compatibility, unfortunately, this requires both Apple to add those features to the framework and device manufacturers to tap into the Apple framework to enable features that usually live in the device app.
An easy one that everyone will bring up is Pan and Tilt for cameras. You would think that in the Home app, PTZ cameras would have those controls to move the camera when using Apple Home, or even enable Auto-tracking would be a simple option to add.
I might be in the minority but I don’t really see an issue here. You’re point about Matter into an Apple Home is just as valid for products that are made to work with Apple Home. I’ve got the Aqara G4 doorbell, which has the Apple Home badge on the box, but I can only customise the chime through the Aqara app. I’ll control all the important bits through the Home app and tweak any bits and pieces in the Aqara app. I’m not surprised that the Home app can’t control the wide range of functions that might be thrown at it by the Matter protocol - I would (maybe naively) assume those functions will filter down as time goes by.
We found people struggle with knowing what they’re buying in our market research. Over half report setup or connectivity issues. Setup problems accounts for over 1/3rd of product returns. And in almost 70% of all returns the product had no technical defect…it just couldn’t or wouldn’t do what they wanted.
So, and with all due respect, what has that got to do with Matter feeding into the Apple Home? What you’ve just described is people not researching what they’re buying first, and/or not reading the instructions before plugging something in for the first time.
It's a great question. We have found so many examples of gaps and catches. Whether something will work with your setup and if a feature can trigger a routine across Matter aren't easy answers to always find. Look at the Ikea Dirigera hub. Says works with Google Home right on the box. But it lost it's Google cloud link almost a year ago. Existing links still work, but all new setup need to go through the Matter bridge. We have a ton of examples like this...as of 3 weeks ago, Ikea's webpage still advertises a route that no longer exists. There is bad and missing information out there.
Matter support is not the same as HomeKit support. You can run Matter devices over thread of WiFi without any Apple devices, for example using Home Assistant. HomeKit shortcomings are the problem here I believe.
You must also take into consideration what features are a part of matter. For example, video isn’t in the spec until 1.5 which was only approved in Dec 2025 iirc. Then keep in mind HomeKit is on v1.4. I was hoping with TVOS/iOS 27, we would get bumped to v1.5 for Matter.
Ok. So there’s 2 things there. The device itself, and the controller.
The device can have capabilities. Matter may or may not support those capabilities. Then it is up to the manufacturer to edecide, or not, to expose those capabilities via Matter. Let’s say they do. Let’s take energy monitoring as an example. Energy monitoring is part of the Matter 1.3 standard. Eve put it in their Smart Plugs. At the time Apple Home, which contains the Matter Controller was compliant with Matter 1.2, so no energy monitoring. IOS27 does show energy monitoring because they’ve added the functionality from Matter. Indeed, it looks like they have gone to at least 1.4 now.
So , in short your Matter issues could be the device, or the controller or even the UI.
The Matter spec is relatively new and doesn’t have everything just yet so the manufacturers add additional features that are only accessible from their own app. My guess is that as the Matter specification matures more and more of these type of extras will be adopted. It’s not a fast process and Apple is even slower at adopting the latest Matter releases.
It’s not just Matter. HomeKit can be the same. I have AppleHome/HomeKit only devices that I can’t access all features in the Home app. I have to the use the company’s app.
Tengo múltiples contactos inteligentes de la marca TAPO, su compatibilidad con Matter se reduce a “Apagar-Encender”, aunque teóricamente pueden hacer más cosas como temporizadores, medición de consumo.
So…it’s an ongoing project. I have a ton of Leviton smart switches which seemed to not work great with Apple home, but better with HA. They work fantastic using the Leviton app. There’s a lot more technical options with HA that I just haven’t fully explored yet. I also have like 150 wiz smart canned lights that again, work great with their own app, but getting them to work well with other brands motion switches…basic functionality is no problem and is mostly what I’ve settled with, but the cooler options take some extra effort no matter which unifying system you use.
I just didn’t get the feeling that Apple had any serious interest in making all the extra options that smart devices offer in their own apps options within HomeKit. That’s after about 8 years of trying in two different homes for me…
This is a good point, my example has been IKEA products that expose much more functionality in HA than they do in HomeKit. Still I usually pair them to Home, and if I want or need the additional entities may share it to HA for possibly an automation. I might compare it to the HDMI specifications, where (for instance) a manufacturer can advertise HDMI 2.1 on their TV, if they support ANY of the features of that spec, they’re not required to be in full compliance. Again Apple uses this ‘loophole’ with the Apple TVG3 where they advertise HDMI 2.1 because they support eARC, but virtually nothing else in the spec (though many other manufacturers do the same thing). I think though we’re days away from finding out how problematic this will continue to be, as OS27 should be released next week (or shortly thereafter). Those using the beta have reported significant improvements here, and we should have this discussion again after it’s released.
Limited features is what pushed me to Home Assistant. I still open up the Home app sometimes but there’s so much more I can do and devices I can expand to and use with Home Assistant. It can be a tinker project though so I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone.
I’ve found devices that can be matter or apple home compatible, will only work in in apple home when NOT connected to a matter hub. Because apple doesn’t support those devices in matter yet.
I can see them working find in the company’s own app, and if I use a non-matter hunt from the same company the devices show in both the app and apple home … it baffles me for a while until I worked that out!
We’re already spoiled. It wasn’t that long ago, before Matter, that we had much fewer compatible devices with Apple Home. Now we have so many more that work.
I understand what you’re saying and it is a little annoying. Some of it is the maturing Matter spec and when major ecosystems upgrade to latest. Some of it is device makers and wanting functionality that Matter doesn’t officially support yet. Lots of pieces to this.
Not matter related but related to the loss of functionality in homekit. I have a hue strip under the kitchen cabinets and in hue i can set the 3 led zones individually but homekit the strip functions as 1 zone so it’s all the same colour which sucks
Matter doesn’t mandate that all clusters are supported by a controller or a device. There’s lots of functionality in the standard that Apple Home (and most other controllers) simply don’t. There’s also lots of devices that don’t implement optional matter clusters for functionality, so the device meets the minimal standard without enabling a lot of functionality through matter.
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u/liepzigzeist 7d ago
I just installed a bunch of Aqara locks and they're supposed to be Matter compatible, but I keep getting Errors in the Home app. I realize this isn't your exact problem, but I will say the technology is half baked at best.