I have several DIY current sensors attached to my circuit breaker box using MQTT so I can monitor them in Node-Red. These I really like since I can use them on 120VAC or 240VAC, but I was looking for something so I didn’t have to make them, and that supported switching the power on and off in addition to the monitoring.
I have a couple of old Wemo smart/monitoring plugs. They’re kind of flakey and I have to use their App which is an even bigger kludge. I was doing a cursory search and found something called Matter which appears to be another open source protocol that can, but doesn’t require some Cloud connection and I found a set of plugs using Matter on a Black Friday deal.
I see there is a Matter plug-in for Node-Red. Does anyone have any experience using the plug-in with these plugs? I’m wondering can I get the usage data and control them into my flows in a similar manner as with MQTT?
Once upon a time you could get almost any brand and flash Tasmota without opening up the case but no longer.
There are are a couple of brands that come pre-flashed: Localbytes in the UK and Athom elsewhere. I guess the iotorero plugs are Athom by another name.
I personally will not buy from Athom because a batch were delivered to the wrong address and stolen. Athom would not take responsibility, despite Evri taking a photo of the package on someone else's doormat.
Don't believe the assertion "The IoTorero plug arrives pre-flashed and pre-assembled, requiring no calibration for immediate use.". You definitely need to calibrate the power monitoring feature.
It’s good to know there are alternatives to Matter in case these don’t work out. On sale, these Kasa plugs were about the same price at < $10US. I also need them in 120VAC here in the US vs your 220 in Europe versions. I see they also have 120 though. Although I don’t do Google, Apple Home or Amazon Alexa yet, this Matter works with them also if I need. Does the Tasmota standard work with those interfaces?
I use the @sammachin/node-red-matter-controller node which allows the Matter device to be controlled by Alexa & Google (plus Node-RED of course). I only have a Sonoff MiniR4 running on it at the moment but it works OK.
Edit: It requires Alexa or Google to register the device first (or whatever Apple use - probably)
PS Sam also has the @sammachin/node-red-matter-bridge which allows devices to be virtual Matter devices. This allows all my zigbee devices to be virtual Matter devices (again all showing in Google & Alexa)
Hi Dave, I've got a lot of those devices which I also flashed with tasmota, and they've worked great using mqtt.
However, I understand that tasmota also give Matter support - Matter - Tasmota which should work with that ESP chip, although I haven't got around to trying it yet….
Until fairly recently Matter didn't have a standardised cluster for Energy Monitoring so devices were all using vendor propriatary implementations for that (the on/off part was standard)
I suspect these devices might be tp-link specific.
My Matter Controller nodes should be able to read them though but it might be a bit of a chore to figure it out as you'll just get some raw data without any documentation.
so true.
I've been the nerd for too long and slowly came to the conclusion, that I have to prepare for my legacy in our home...there will be a time when I will be not available or not willing to be any more, as retirement brings other life opportunities. So I'd better leave something behind, that can be used/maintained by the rest non-nerdy/tech-savvy family & friends.
My new "swiss-army knife" here are the gen4 models from shelly, as they support wiffi, matter, mqtt and/or zigbee.
...with their "Dirigera"-Hub, that offers a matter bridge and another feature which allows to connect to a thread network, there is a good opportunity to re-use or extend the life of your zigbee components.
This hub works really well with third party zigbee products.
Because of that, I will chase for IKEA tradfri light bulbs, when they are on sale - these are a around 10-15% cheaper than their matter based bulbs atm.
Keep in mind that Matter and Zigbee devices need an external radio antenna to work (to create a network for them to connect to), unlike WiFi devices, which can connect to your (most probably) already existing wireless network.
Though I would keep all "smart" and IoT devices on a separate/dedicated network, preferably without direct internet access.
Edit: well I may be misinformed, seems Matter devices can talk on WiFi networks as well? Don't listen to me then haha.
