Where is HomeKit support for Flic Twist?

[gregorysinclair]

@vesa moreover not all thread HomeKit products are matter. Nanoleaf, in their infinite wisdom, decided to come out with a new range of matter bulbs (even though they already use thread and could easily be fixed with firmware). Nonetheless that is not flic's fault but Flic could give at least some Homekit support to the flic twist. It doesn't have to all be about dimming.

Moreover you do have the HomeKit logo on the original kickstarter page.

That you've now put it underneath the matter logo is misleading.

There is absolutely no reason not to expose most of the functionality of the flic twist to matter as buttons - the dimming is not essential in the meantime.

Moreover, not a single firmware update in a year is something I've never experienced.

[gregorysinclair]

@Emil Obviously I don't have access to a kickstarter page from 3 years ago.
However I have already explained how it is possible to integrate the flic twist into Homekit without bothering with dimming.

You simply choose, for example the 4 points, on the scene blender and give each of them button status.

[vesa]

@Emil You still claim HomeKit support on the Kickstarter page, starting from year 2022. Saying just because you asked where do you exactly say it.

It is under umbrella of the "Matter". Overall both advertising and language is often in line of "control every aspect of Your Smart Home", which might be a bit misleading in the Apple world.

Listen Emil, think a lot of people's upsetness about lack of integration supports could be handled by openly telling where the progress is going. You for example blog about sustainability, but I think waaay bigger part of the customer base would like to hear some progress reports on the Home Assistant, Matter, etc. support development. Game devs have been doing this since digital delivery and people actually are really good at waiting as long as they can see the queue in front of them.

[Emil]

@gregorysinclair can you point out where we would have said that Flic Twist would ever support HomeKit?

Currently it would be impossible for us to support HomeKit for Flic Twist, at least until Apple decides to add support for "rotating" input devices. Currently the only supported input devices by HomeKit are push buttons (click, double click, hold) and on-off switches.

Our Matter integration is just around the corner. With that one you will be able to control Nanoleaf, Govee lights etc. (at least their devices with Matter support) with the Flic Twist. We really hope more devices will add support for Matter since this protocol seems to be the only "open" protocol that seems to have any kind of future.

[gregorysinclair]

@seth_flic It is 6 months since this topic was raised and there has not even been a firmware update for the hub within that time.
Have you just given up on the HomeKit support mentioned in the kickstarter nearly 3 years ago?

[gregorysinclair]

@gregorysinclair It is 6 months since this topic was raised and there has not even been a firmware update for the hub within that time.
Have you just given up on the HomeKit support mentioned in the kickstarter nearly 3 years ago?

[Emil]

@vesa Maybe I misunderstand you when you say that TUO works without a hub, but what I can see, a Matter hub is definitively required since their developers have not bothered to support the Binding feature which would allow direct communication (https://blog.espressif.com/matter-device-to-device-automations-bdbb32365350) but only the Generic Switch cluster which requires a Hub that receives and processes the events and forwards them somewhere else. We actually bought one of those to our office to try it out. The battery died after about two months with barely any usage. We also experienced like 90% button press losses when connected to SmartThings station for no apparent reason. It seemed to work better with Apple HomePod though...

Anyway, one of our big goals/targets as soon as we're done with Matter is actually to make a proper Home Assistant integration, since, as you say, everyone does not seem happy with the current workarounds/solutions made by the community that are currently out there. I hope this will become a very welcomed addition.

We would always love to have more good coders working with us to speed up the development! See more info at https://flic.io/careers.

[vesa]

@Emil said in Where is HomeKit support for Flic Twist?:

@vesa What Matter buttons do you have that have good battery, do not require a hub and work reliably?

Home Assistant + Flic is possible through e.g. https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/flic/.

I went for the TP-Link + Matter hub route as I had some existing hardware. Apparently the TUO Smart button (no hub) is very functional, the HA use still has hurdles but works as a simple button.

This Flic integration for HA is the "no hub" solution that is limited to specific userbase with direct bluetooth from HA to buttons. Seems kind of limited need for it. Some time ago there was the hub-sdk solution that I had kind of working until it just didn't again and it wore me out.

My guess it it would not be too many days of effort for a full time coder on flic side to make official Hub integration if such coder was available.

[Emil]

@vesa What Matter buttons do you have that have good battery, do not require a hub and work reliably?

Home Assistant + Flic is possible through e.g. https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/flic/.

[vesa]

Unfortunately it seems like Flic has made itself unnesessary for a lot of potential users by having too big ambitions for the company size, wrong direction and lacking communication. We now have already shipping Matter enabled smart buttons with good battery life that do not require (being matter, after all) a hub, cost very little and work reliably. Personally I have already replaced functionality of my Flics with other buttons as Home Assistant support never came, but still have them on the walls. As the Matter support is is taking so much longer than other "buttons" and there aren't any updates really I am now planning on finally removing the flics from the walls. and throwing them to garbage.

That's kinda sad as I was hoping originally so much from them and I do like the feel. But, they were kinda behind the times from the very begining I had them.

[subscriptions]

I am very dissapointed as well, I was super excitied about these buttons and I have in between my order and when I got them significantly invested in to my small 2 bedroom apartment in terms of smart home functionality. I added smart thermostats, replaced more lights added way more RGB than is usefull to the "gaming room" combining govee and hue lights as well as smart humidifiers etc. it can all be controlled through home assistant.

I was ready to have physical buttons to control all of this again, it would make it so much easier on my wife in particular. We are SOOOO much further along now even after the kickstarter, and there is still no message other than "our priority is matter blah blah" IF that is your priority: where is it? It doesn't support dimmers? Then WHY is it your priority given that "twist" is literally in the name and dimming is the right thing to do. You COULD add SDK support until Matter figures things out but there is a flat out refusal to make it usable. It is sad and I make sure that anyone discussing this knows how poor the support for this product is.

[beatyshot]

@amir I've tried switchbot hub 2
https://www.ozsmartthings.com.au/products/switchbot-hub-2

that can add IR device like aircon and expose that to homekit through matter and they work well!

on switchbot side

on homekit side

[paul.stratton]

@gregorysinclair Completely agree with you on this. Hopefully @Emil can prioritise this as a fix to give some limited functionality to the two twists I finally received, which currently have zero utility in my HomeKit automated home.

[pofi]

@sami-laine I also have a similar setup and am surprised to learn that the flic twists (of which i bought 3) are totally incapable of controlling my lutron lights

[gregorysinclair]

@seth_flic agreed. They are of no use whatsoever. All my lights are nanoleaf (flic twist only supports the shapes, not the bulbs). Until they make it appear as a HomeKit button it is of no use at all. I realise they are having issues with the dial but at the very least make the button presses work with HomeKit like the flic 2.
If there was a way around it using home bridge, or home assistant I'd gladly do that but for now these are just expensive bricks that Fedex wanted import duty for.

[sami.laine]

@amir I just received the Flic Twist from the Dec 2021 Kickstarter campaign, and from what I see here in this thread is that now almost two years later what I received is not usable for anything I'd need it for. I have the whole house set up with Lutron Caseta dimmers with Lutron HomeKit bridge, some Nanoleafs that are HomeKit native, and an IKEA Trådfri gateway controlling couple of kitchen lights. My music is played on a dozen HomePod stereo pairs in different rooms. I can't control any of the lights directly or access any of the HomeKit lighting Scenes, with the possible exception of directly controlling the two IKEA lights, which is not practically useful in this scenario. Future Matter support, whenever that may or may not ship, is unlikely to help here as Lutron hasn't AFAIK announced any path for the Caseta system to interact with Matter.

@amir please let me know if I misunderstood something?

[gregorysinclair]

@Emil there is no reason not to give HomeKit support to the other parts of the flic twist (like with the flic2) such as push and double push.

furthermore the twist part has something scene blender and advanced dimming - both of these have set points which can trigger devices or actions. Why can't these be exposed as individual HomeKit buttons?

It might not be what you intended but it's a simple workaround for something that has been promised for 2 years.

As of now the flic twist is completely useless for me as I use nanoleaf bulbs (which are HomeKit only - your nanoleaf integration only works with the nanoleaf elements).
There's been 2 years to get this working and what I've been sent is a product there's literally nothing I can do with.

I'd sooner you took a return and sent me the equivalently costing flic 2 buttons which at least I can use. I calculate 3 flic twists to be worth at least 8 flic 2 buttons.
Failing that a full return under the UK Distance Selling Regulations.
I have also emailed about this.

[Emil]

@gregorysinclair Homekit can control dimmABLE lights but does not support dimmERS as input devices, i.e. you cannot pair a dimmer (such as a wireless rotational device) and configure it to dim some specific light.

[gregorysinclair]

@amir I find this bizarre. I bought this pack on kickstarter almost 2 years ago. It has only just arrived and there has been ample time to get HomeKit certification.

Furthermore Homekit absolutely does do dimming.
I am able to dim lights through the Home App using my existing nano leaf bulbs and I could also do this previously in the home app with my Lifx bulbs.
Below (in the image) is a Homekit dimmer

[seth_flic]

@amir Will this Matter Controller be a separate product customers will have to pay extra for in order to use their Flic Twists with an ecosystem? Or will it be a firmware update to existing Flic hubs?

All of this seems like critical information that you could have included in the "now shipping" announcement about the Flic Twist. A large part of my annoyance with the current state of the Flic Twist is your failure to properly set expectations prior to delivery. Own these limitations and disclose them up front rather than leaving each user to have to dig them up and pull them out of you in your forums. At the very least, this information should be included in a FAQ on the Flic Twist product page (or the feature comparison grid on that page).

I would have been content to be able to use my Flic Twists without the dimming feature until that feature is available. But currently my Twists are completely useless to me. I backed this product with the expectation that the Twist would at least have feature parity with the Flic 2 Smart Buttons that I have been quite happy with. At no point did you disclose that this was not the case.