The upcoming smarthome standard Matter will also play a role in do-it-yourself projects. This is shown, for example, by an announcement from Nabu Casa. The Californian company (link), which is backed by the founders of the open-source software Home Assistant, also develops hardware. The latest project is called Home Assistant Yellow and is based on a Raspberry Pi.
Like the predecessor Home Assistant Blue, it is a mini-computer for home automation that – of course – runs the Home Assistant software. As such, it can take more than 1000 different products under its wing (link) and network them with each other. The difference to its predecessor is that the Yellow already has built-in wireless technology for connecting lamps, thermostats and other devices, so it doesn’t need a USB stick.
As Nabu Casa now announced, it will also support Matter. The used radio module from Silicon Labs can handle Zigbee and Bluetooth 5.1 as well as Thread. In the future, it should even be possible to operate products with Zigbee and Thread in parallel on the control panel. This would make the Home Assistant Yellow suitable, for example, as a bridge for devices that are not even certified (more on this subject in the interview with Tim Böth from Eve Systems).
However, there is still a long way to go until then, as Nabu Casa itself communicates on the project page (link). Since the release of Matter is delayed into the fall, the first batch of the mini-computer will ship with Zigbee firmware. The developers are “confident that supporting Matter will only be… a matter of time”.
The Home Assistant Yellow is available via the crowdfunding platform CrowdSupply and costs between 115 and 175 US-Dollar depending on the version (link). Worldwide shipping is an additional $20.
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