Flic knob gets Matter – but differently than expected
The Swedish smart home company Flic has made its devices fit for Matter – but in a very special way. HomeKit is left out.
Flic Twist: With Matter, but somehow not. The Swedes take an unusual approach.
(Image: Flic)
Anyone living in an Apple Smart Home ecosystem has so far been unable to use the interesting rotary control from Swedish provider Shortcut Labs: The Flic Twist lacked both HomeKit and (initially) Matter connectivity, despite a €680,000 Kickstarter campaign.
But now Matter support has finally been added to the Flic Twist: There has recently been an update for this, according to the manufacturer's support area. However, the implementation is very unique: instead of being able to integrate the Flic Twist into a HomeKit network via Matter, this is only possible in reverse: HomeKit devices have to translate to the Flic.
Flic as its own ecosystem
In concrete terms, this means that Flic has not made the €80 Flic Twist Matter-capable, but rather the hub required for this, which costs a further €90. Shortcut Labs wants to become a kind of ecosystem itself: According to company manager Joacim Westlund Prändel told IT blog The Verge, users should subordinate their existing HomeKit accessories that support Matter to the Flic hub. It will then also be possible to control the devices using Flic Twist.
Previously, the regular Flic 2 button without the twist function, the "Flic Button" priced at 36 euros, was already compatible with HomeKit as long as you had only purchased the Flic Hub and operated it in the HomeKit network. Many users had expected that this would also be the case with the Flic Twist via Matter. However, as mentioned, this is not the case. One of the reasons for this is that neither HomeKit nor Matter supports twist controls in the same way as the Twist, for example as a dimmer, volume control or blind height adjustment knob. "Our Flic Twist is the first rotating device that you can use with Matter, which I think is really cool," says Prändel.
All Matter devices united under Flic Hub
In practice, this means that all devices that you would like to control with the Flic Twist must first be logged out of HomeKit so that they can then be logged back into the Flip app. To do this, Matter supports a pairing mode including new codes that can be called up in the respective device settings of the Home app. These are then entered or scanned in the Flic software. "You have to use our products to control other Matter things," Prändel admitted to The Verge. "At least then you are totally independent of these privacy issues with the big tech companies."
The Flic makers from Shortcut Labs emphasize that they do not synchronize any information to any cloud servers. The Flic Twist should "literally support everything that is in the Matter standard". Only via the Swedes' own software, which many customers would have imagined differently. Because once the Matter-enabled HomeKit devices are in there, they can no longer be controlled via Apple's Home app.
According to Shortcuts Lab Manager Prändel, a Matter device does not have to be removed from HomeKit to control it via the Flic Button or Flic Twist hub. As a certified Matter controller, the system also supports the multi-admin function, which allows Matter devices to be controlled simultaneously by multiple controllers. It is also not necessary to buy the more expensive Flic Hub LR (90 euros), the Flic Hub Mini (30 euros) is sufficient, since it does not support HomeKit, but it does support Matter. The cheapest package consisting of Button and Hub Mini thus costs 65 euros. A package consisting of Twist and Hub Mini is available for 99 euros (individual price together 110 euros).
According to Prändel, the implementation of the control dial was only possible via the hub and its own software, since such “stepless controllers” are not supported by either HomeKit or Matter. “This is a proprietary technology on the controller side that enables stepless control of Matter-equipped lights, blinds, and other products where such stepless control makes sense,” he told Mac & i.
Empfohlener redaktioneller Inhalt
Mit Ihrer Zustimmmung wird hier ein externer Preisvergleich (heise Preisvergleich) geladen.
Ich bin damit einverstanden, dass mir externe Inhalte angezeigt werden. Damit können personenbezogene Daten an Drittplattformen (heise Preisvergleich) übermittelt werden. Mehr dazu in unserer Datenschutzerklärung.
(bsc)
