Broken dimming with matter enabled device. Nest hub with preview firmware 20.20240530.3.18053

[_shane]

Can I confirm that dimming and changing colours for matter enabled lights is broken in the preview programme for the nest hub? I am running firmware version : 20.20240530.3.18053

If I turn off the nest hub and use nest minis that are running firmware 3.73.429109 the matter devices can be dimmed and have the colour changed ok.

Some debugging suggests it is a missing 'transitionTime' key in the matter command.

Is there a way to block the nest hub from being the matter controller? I have instructed the device to leave the firmware programme but it will not update. Can it be forced somehow?

Is there an ETA on when either the preview programme firmware will be fixed, or when a new production build will be rolled out to force a "downgrade" ?

[sipriyadarshi · Accepted solution]

Hello @_shane ,

Thank you for reaching out to us with your issue. Based on what you are describing above, there is no way to control which hub is going to work as a matter controller in a shared structure. They will share the jobs among themselves. Our preview program features upcoming features which are still under development. There might be certain bugs or issues with these beta versions and the team conducts extensive testing to refine these products. So, if there are any issues the team will work on resolving them. There is no way to force and down level the firmware version. However, you can try to factory reset the hub and see if that rolls it back to a previous firmware version. 

[sipriyadarshi · Accepted solution]

Hello @_shane ,

Thank you for reaching out to us with your issue. Based on what you are describing above, there is no way to control which hub is going to work as a matter controller in a shared structure. They will share the jobs among themselves. Our preview program features upcoming features which are still under development. There might be certain bugs or issues with these beta versions and the team conducts extensive testing to refine these products. So, if there are any issues the team will work on resolving them. There is no way to force and down level the firmware version. However, you can try to factory reset the hub and see if that rolls it back to a previous firmware version. 

[_shane]

Thanks, but what I wanted to know is whether there is a known issue or not. Or at least confirm that this issue is something they are aware of and/or acknowledgement that it is a bug. Also when the next firmware update will be rolled out such that my device can be restored to working order.

It seems difficult to believe that they would not test against the most well known reference implementation project-chip/matter.js with such common functionality as dimming a light. The Tasmota implementation of matter also has the same issue so I would imagine it's incompatible with most matter implementations. The team will "work on resolving them" only if they are aware of the issues, but I have not had any indication they are aware of the issue. They certainly weren't before publishing it. A response from an engineer acknowledging the bug would be useful.

The fact it works fine with the device off and the nest minis enabled gives a strong indication that it is the nest hub preview firmware causing the problem.

I have tried a factory reset but this did not change anything.

[_shane · Accepted solution]

I've also raised this here: https://github.com/project-chip/matter.js/pull/1332

and with the 'send feedback' option. Others have confirmed the issue. I do believe it is a Google firmware bug but there is no response or confirmation from Google anywhere. We can only wait and see if they fix it.