Internet-connected devices have their appeal, but that doesn’t mean we all want to do away with switches and buttons for voice assistants and phone apps. We want our homes to still function and feel like homes that anyone in the family can operate. Fortunately, that’s the way virtually every Matter device I’ve purchased functions.
All of my smart lights work as regular lights
When you walk into my house, you’re likely to notice that all the light switches have glowing circles on them. They’re TP-Link Tapo lights (mostly the Tapo S505), which I purchased because they don’t require the Tapo app to control from any Matter controller, be that Samsung SmartThings or Home Assistant. If, as a visitor, you press any of these switches, the lights turn on and off, just as you would expect.
These smart switches aren't just for my lights, either. I have some wired up to my ceiling fans as well as the exhaust fans in our bathrooms. Sometimes we leave the latter running for far longer than they need to, so it's handy to be able to turn them off without having to actively walk by each bathroom.
If you see the light in my Tapo switches, you know that the fans aren’t running. If you don’t, then you know that they’re on. Pressing the switch always turns them off or on, no matter if they were last controlled via an app or voice assistant. They’re switches that work as switches.
The same is true of my other Matter devices
While I’ve filled my home with smart switches, these are far from the only Matter devices I have. I’ve installed a Honeywell Home X2s smart thermostat that is Matter compatible but, write frankly, looks and works just like any other Honeywell Home thermostat you might see everywhere in the US. You can go up to the LCD screen and operate it like you would any other. In fact, I installed it just like any other thermostat and had everything up and running before even bothering with enabling Matter integration or signing in to any accounts. All of those bits are optional.
The same is true of my Tapo P210M smart outlet (I currently only have one). I can turn receptacles off remotely, but there are also physical buttons on the outlet that can turn the receptacles back on. There’s no point where it stops working because of anything internet related.
Matter is an addition to physical controls, not a replacement
Matter expands what devices can do, but this added form of communication rarely serves as the only way to control a device. That’s not to say that there aren’t some Matter products that are internet-dependant, but those are specialty devices that you often wouldn’t have in a non-smart home to begin with.
My SwitchBot motion sensor, for example, requires the internet to function, but it isn’t replacing an existing thing I already had around the house. It’s just a cheap way to automatically turn on the light in my closet, and I can always still just turn on that light by hand.
So don’t make the assumption that someone’s internet-connected home will fall apart when the internet goes down. The added smart features may shut down, but more often than not, smart homes still continue to function as regular homes in that circumstance. In short, when I or anyone else reach for a light switch, it always does what we expect a light switch to do, even if it happens to have a glowing light.
