I posted something much like this on openhab and home assistant forum too, I will decide what to do based on what I hear...
I am trying to produce an open source Energy Recovery Ventilator, and software is not my forte.
I frankly find the sheer variety and quantity of buzzwords and subsystems in the home automation sphere difficult to navigate. I am unclear on why exactly things have to be so complicated... anyway.
I am using a raspberry pi pico running micropython. Do you think it would be practical to make it appear as basically a fan with several different modes to a matter hub? Maybe report back some info so the user can see some status updates etc. ?
What I want is basically to allow it to be controlled by a hub, which may be running on a phone or someone’s PC, so the hub’s user interface etc. Can be used to make the device turn off an on, up and down on a schedule, it can be connected to other devices like a co2 detector, smart switch, etc.
I need, sooner or later, possibly with the help of module(s) running on the pico to cache data (like schedule data) get the time or whatever, a dictionary which I will use for the rest of the system to interface to. The main loop consults the dictionary to determine behaviour at any given moment. The hub checks what time of day it is, etc. And sends that info along.
Is this sort of thing doable?
I tried to look into making the thing Alexa compatible and ye gads it would take me months to get that stuff working. They make everything so complicated
Found some stuff for esp32 devices like esphome, but it is not practical to use as a module in a larger system. MQTT looks like it could play an important role, but doesn't quite get me there and for some reason Alexa, Google home etc still cant really talk to mqtt devices very well, esp. including device setup etc. Basically, envision a little hardware device that just serves up some fields and takes back some fields, then appears as a device to Google home's app etc. I need that, but a software module that runs on a pico. Is it practical to roll this or is it going to be an ungainly undertaking?
Matter provides an industry–unifying standard to promise reliable, secure connectivity standard that works with today’s smart home ecosystems (Google Home, Alexa, HomeKit, etc.). If you want to develop a matter enabled device with Google, you can follow up the get-started guide to start developing your device.