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Can you have 2 bridges in a system i.e. can I create matter nodes for 2 different devices with 2 different bridge names? ( an early trial suggests not but I thought I would ask)
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The reason for the first question is that in our house we have 2 Amazon accounts with Alexa devices on both (both on the same network) Is it possible to have some nodes connected to 1 Alexa account & the others to the other. (i.e. a bridge for each account)
This is a request: at the moment I have a change node on the output of some switch Matter nodes to define a topic - would it be possible to have an entry field in the node setup to define a topic?
Hi,
I assume you are using my node-red-matter-bridge
At the moment you can only run one bridge per network interface as the server port is fixed to 5540, Alexa doesn’t like matter devices on non standard ports so I hard coded it to avoid issues.
They are meant to be fixing that though.
So you could potentially create 2 network interfaces and setup a 2nd bridge on there.
However it’s also possible to commission the bridge to multiple matter controllers so that both accounts can control all the devices.
Unless you want to explicitly limit the devices each account has access to?
Regarding the topic, is this to be able to set a topic when new messages originate from a matter node?
If it’s the result of an input message then the topic should be preserved but I can see it being useful on new messages, could you raise an issue on the GitHub repo for the package and I’ll look to add it to the next release
I would prefer to limit the devices each account has access to but at this point it isn't vital.
Next question, would you explain in simple terms how to commission the bridge to 2 matter controllers?
One final question, do the bridge nodes save stuff to global variables? (I have random globals - e13811a023b7dca1-measuredValue for example - which have suddenly appeared)
Hi,
To add a second controller to a matter device you usually initiate it from the first paired controller to get a new pairing code (counter intuitive I know!)
On the Alexa app goto your list of devices and find the Bridge Device
o
Tap on 'Other Assistants and Apps'
Then tap
add another you should then get a 9 digit code that you can use as the pairing code on the second alexa app to add the device.
You enter this just like you did the QR code but there's an option for 'Try a numeric code instead'
Note that these secondary codes are only good for 15 mins after generation.
If you wanted to you could then safely remove the inital controller from the device and the 2nd one would remain paired it doesn't rely on the primary after its been setup.
Regardig the global vars, yes some devices (mostly sensors IIRC) don't persist their values in the Matter storeage so in order to avoid resetting the readings to zero when a node is re-deployed I put them in the context store with the node-id as part of the key.
At some point I need to overhaul the whole data storage part of these nodes so as not to rely on the local filesystem too and at that stage this will likely get moved too.
I'm working on a new feature which will add to the msg object with details of which Fabric (aka controller) initiated the command, so you would then be able to filter commands between the different Alexa accounts.
Note: it likely won't reliably tell you which physical echo device was used to initiate the voice command as thats separate from the Matter control layer but I'll incude what data I have
