I simply cannot fathom how this app and system could have been thought as being "good enough" for release.
Even now, 5-7(?) years after launch.
The whole system and app fails at some of the most common situations.
As Matter is still new, I rely on having accessories linked to their manufacturer hubs and then bridged to Apple Home.
Finally, no, setup is easy enough. But as soon as something a little bit unplanned happens it breaks.
If the power goes out, Apple Home for some reason cannot re-locate the third party hub if that hub changed its IP address. (The third party hub also helpfully cannot be set to use a fixed IP address and uses DHCP, always).
So, you need to link the bridge manually. There is no "relink" button (ie; "please go manually search my network for a bridge with the exact same name, exact same MAC address and durrr... exact manufacturer and accessories connected")
No, you need to start the process from all over.
And the old bridge and accessories? Well they never disappear. For some reason, you cannot remove the link or remove the old accessories. "Could not change setting" is the error message. Why could you not change? What is affecting this? dog only knows.
And if you linked (relinked) the bridge on one device, you would think that the changes were automatically synced to other devices.
ie; you used the iPhone to link bridge because you have to scan the QR code at the bottom of the bridge that the changes would then be visible after a short period of time on the iPad. Well no. For some reason though the "main Hub" is one Apple TV, it took me to restart ALL devices (iPad, iPhone and two Apple TVs) for the changes to filter though. Having waited pointlessly for days for it to (not) do it on its own.
And obviously, since you added "new" accessories (which you have to give new names) all your old Scenes no longer work and have to be rebuilt. Great fun.
Also you cannot have Shortcuts with the same name as a scene in Home, the shortcuts does not understand "toggle" of a scene so I have to make a if/when workaround.
Another finally fixed bug was that Scenes and shortcuts had to have unique names from deleted scenes and shortcuts. (So if you made a scene called "basic lights" and then deleted it, you could make a new scene with the same name "basic lights" but had to call it "basic lights 2" or something.) It's great it's fixed, but why did this bug even exist?
Rant over.
Even now, 5-7(?) years after launch.
The whole system and app fails at some of the most common situations.
As Matter is still new, I rely on having accessories linked to their manufacturer hubs and then bridged to Apple Home.
Finally, no, setup is easy enough. But as soon as something a little bit unplanned happens it breaks.
If the power goes out, Apple Home for some reason cannot re-locate the third party hub if that hub changed its IP address. (The third party hub also helpfully cannot be set to use a fixed IP address and uses DHCP, always).
So, you need to link the bridge manually. There is no "relink" button (ie; "please go manually search my network for a bridge with the exact same name, exact same MAC address and durrr... exact manufacturer and accessories connected")
No, you need to start the process from all over.
And the old bridge and accessories? Well they never disappear. For some reason, you cannot remove the link or remove the old accessories. "Could not change setting" is the error message. Why could you not change? What is affecting this? dog only knows.
And if you linked (relinked) the bridge on one device, you would think that the changes were automatically synced to other devices.
ie; you used the iPhone to link bridge because you have to scan the QR code at the bottom of the bridge that the changes would then be visible after a short period of time on the iPad. Well no. For some reason though the "main Hub" is one Apple TV, it took me to restart ALL devices (iPad, iPhone and two Apple TVs) for the changes to filter though. Having waited pointlessly for days for it to (not) do it on its own.
And obviously, since you added "new" accessories (which you have to give new names) all your old Scenes no longer work and have to be rebuilt. Great fun.
Also you cannot have Shortcuts with the same name as a scene in Home, the shortcuts does not understand "toggle" of a scene so I have to make a if/when workaround.
Another finally fixed bug was that Scenes and shortcuts had to have unique names from deleted scenes and shortcuts. (So if you made a scene called "basic lights" and then deleted it, you could make a new scene with the same name "basic lights" but had to call it "basic lights 2" or something.) It's great it's fixed, but why did this bug even exist?
Rant over.