Case analysis, immersive mastering of important concepts of Matter

Focus: core products, core market, core information

Recently, I have done more in-depth study on Matter, and I plan to write it out and share it with you; if you are interested in the Matter protocol, please add friends to communicate with you;

foreword

I remember that when Bluetooth Mesh was released in 2017, I felt that the spring of the Internet of Things was coming, because all mobile phones could support it natively. For more than 4 years, although Bluetooth Mesh has developed well in China, it is still as standard and interoperable as imagined at the time. There is still a gender gap;

Looking at the Matter protocol now, I feel that the opportunity is greater than when I looked at Bluetooth Mesh at the beginning. The reason is that the current closed ecology brings about user experience and brand fragmentation, resulting in an unsatisfactory user experience and changing brand costs. Matter is also based on this. Starting from this point, there is hope to improve the problem, so as to make the furniture IoT cake bigger;

Today, through air-conditioning examples, we will introduce important concepts in the Matter protocol, such as Node, Endpoint, Cluster, Attribute, etc., as well as some basic Clusters of Matter;

This article has a total of 1268 words, and the reading time is estimated to be 15 minutes

Dismantling of air conditioner function

The air conditioner has the following capabilities:

start/stop;
Temperature adjustment, including upward adjustment and downward adjustment;
Mode adjustment, including heating mode, cooling mode, ventilation mode;
Air volume adjustment, including low, medium and high;

Disassemble the above functions according to the data model of Matter to get the following structure

Matter noun overview

Let's take a look at the nouns in Matter in combination with the air conditioner above

Node

The addressable, unique, unit with a series of functions and capabilities in the Matter network can be an independent device or a mobile APP; here, the air conditioner belongs to a Node;

Endpoint

Endpoint is the entity of the service, such as the air-conditioning service here; a Node can contain multiple Endpoints, here is an additional example, such as a three-key switch, which actually controls three different lights respectively, so this three-key switch can have 3 Endpoints;

Here Endpoint 0 needs to be reserved to describe the information of Node itself;

Cluster

Cluster is the specific functional module of Endpoint, which generally supports specific interfaces/services, and it realizes interaction through the definition of Server and Client; for example, the air conditioner here can provide the ability to split into corresponding Cluster, OnOff Cluster,

Cluster is divided into Utility Cluster (non-functional, such as OTA, configuration service, etc.) and Application Cluster;

Attribute

Attributes, this is easy to understand, for example, the switch contains the OnOff attribute, and the temperature adjustment contains the CurrentLevel attribute;

Attributes can be valid for a long time, and can also be restored to the default after the device is restarted; Attributes can be read-only, or readable and writable;

Command

Command, used by Client to control the behavior of Server; such as Toggle (flip) Command in OnOff Cluster;

Cluster Server/Client

Similar to the Model in Bluetooth Mesh, each Matter Cluster has its own server and client; the server provides device capabilities, and the client provides the ability to control devices;

The air conditioner in this example is equipped with an air conditioner controller and a mobile APP, as shown in the figure below

Basic Cluster and its functions

Binding Cluster

Binding (binding) Cluster is used to establish a connection between Client Endpoint and one/multiple Endpoints/groups; the Attribute of this Binding Cluster is a List, which is used to store the above relationship;

For example, the air conditioner control panel for this article will establish a Binding relationship with the air conditioner to support subsequent air conditioner control;

Descriptor Cluster

This is the Server Cluster that exists in each node, which is used to describe the node information. This node can be an Endpoint or a combination of multiple Endpoints;

Therefore, the Attribute of this Cluster contains multiple Lists;

Taking the Descriptor Cluster of the above air conditioner as an example, its ServerList will include two panels for mobile phones and air conditioners;

If the 3-button switch is taken as an example, PartsList will include the information of 3 Endpoints except Endpoint0;

Access Control List (ACL) Cluster

Each node has an ACL Cluster, which is used to manage the access rights of the node; this follow-up expansion;

interaction model

The interaction model describes system behavior in the network; it covers state updates, subscriptions, reads, writes, matches, etc.;

For example, we added a sensor, the sensor protects a temperature sensing Endpoint, and this Endpoint has a temperature attribute;

The air conditioner can subscribe to the temperature attribute, and when the temperature of the sensor changes, it will actively push a message to the air conditioner to complete automatic control;

>> History related articles

Talking about the Matter protocol (formerly CHIP protocol)

Analysis of Matter protocol features (1) Support for non-Matter protocols

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Case analysis, immersive mastering of important concepts of Matter

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