> Matter is unfortunately not that vision. It is still locking you into a cloud-based system, but you can take your devices to a system of your choice.
I'm not sure what that means. I have quite a few Matter devices. None of them use cloud services. They exist but they're not required in any way.
Good question! I use Home Assistant OS with the Matter Server addon. Are you saying whatever operates the fabric has a cloud dependency? Home Assistant does have Internet access but even if I firewall that off, the devices keep working.
I wasn't aware that there are open source fabrics. It's not mandatory that it's cloud-based, that's just how the Apple/Google/Samsung etc. fabrics are all implemented.
I do think that Matter is designed with a commercial, cloud-based fabric in mind. Normal people don't want to have even a smart home router, let alone run a local fabric.
I’m fairly sure that if I pair them all to HomeKit, they still work without Internet. That’s the case for everything else with HomeKit, I don’t see why it would be different for Matter devices.
> Normal people don't want to have even a smart home router, let alone run a local fabric.
That’s fair, I guess, but _something_ has to coordinate things. I’m not aware of how Samsung, Google and others do it as I’m only familiar with Home Assistant and HomeKit, but the main difference between those 2 is that with Home Assistant that _something_ is whatever runs HA (I have it on a VM, but a lot of people run it on SBCs or one of the official appliances), and the Apple ecosystem relies on other devices people bought in are likely to already own (iPads, Apple TVs, HomePods, …).
In either case, the controller device is there and requires no Internet access to operate. Possibly during commissioning of a new device - I haven’t checked - but that’s it.
> That’s fair, I guess, but _something_ has to coordinate things.
You don't need any coordination for basic scenarios like a wireless switch in a room controls the lights in that room.
Depending on whether the underlying protocol allows forwarding and can establish the minimum spanning tree, you might need a repeater if you want all-on/all-off kind of functionality in a large home.
The coordinator, which in Matter is a thread border router, translates between the Thread and WiFi networks, which is what allows app or cloud based control, including "automations" like reactions and schedules.
You generally don't need a Thread Border Router to combine one manufacturer's products together, e.g. Phillips Hue, but it will use Bluetooth instead of Thread/ZigBee.
I'm not sure what that means. I have quite a few Matter devices. None of them use cloud services. They exist but they're not required in any way.