Apple Home missing Wind/Rock Mode controls for Matter Tower Fan

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Created 1w

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Hi Apple Home Team,

We are integrating a Matter-enabled Tower Fan with Apple Home and have observed that the current Apple Home UI does not expose all the capabilities defined by the Matter Fan Control cluster.

Wind Mode

Our device supports the following WindMode values:

Normal
Natural
Sleep

However, Apple Home does not provide any UI to view or control the Natural and Sleep wind modes. Only the basic fan controls are available.

Rock Mode (Oscillation Direction)

Our device also supports the following RockMode values:

Off
Left-Right
Up-Down

In Apple Home, we only see a single Oscillation toggle (On/Off). There is no option to select the oscillation direction (e.g., Left-Right or Up-Down).

Could you please clarify:

Does Apple Home currently support the Matter WindMode attribute of the Fan Control cluster?
Is the current On/Off Oscillation control the expected behavior for devices that support multiple RockMode directions?
What is the recommended approach for Matter devices that implement multiple RockMode values (e.g., Left-Right and Up-Down)?
Are there any plans to add native UI support for Wind Mode and Rock Mode direction selection in a future Apple Home release?

Thank you for your support. We look forward to your guidance on the recommended implementation for Apple Home.

Thanks, Chintan Patel

Answer 1

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

6d

Does Apple Home currently support the Matter WindMode attribute of the Fan Control cluster?

Is the current On/Off Oscillation control the expected behavior for devices that support multiple RockMode directions?

For both of these, the answer is no, not currently. HomeKit and Home.app's Matter support works by creating mappings between the Matter specification and the existing HomeKit properties (which come from the HAP specification). That means that some attributes (like WindMode) my not be mapped while other (like oscillation control) will may not support the full set matter supports.

What is the recommended approach for Matter devices that implement multiple RockMode values (e.g., Left-Right and Up-Down)?

The best option is to create your own applications which communicates directly over matter, either as an independant ecosystem controller or through the HomeKit ecosystem channel I describe here and here.

Are there any plans to add native UI support for Wind Mode and Rock Mode direction selection in a future Apple Home release?

I can't comment on our future plans or schedule. If you'd like us to add support for this, then my recommendation is that you file a bug asking us to add support.

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Kevin Elliott
DTS Engineer, CoreOS/Hardware

Answer 2

EIC_Ratna OP

16h

Hi Kevin,

Thank you for your response.

Could you please share the appropriate bug filing link or portal where I can submit a request to add support for this feature?

Thank you for your help.

Best regards, Chintan Patel

Answer 3

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

3h

Could you please share the appropriate bug filing link or portal where I can submit a request to add support for this feature?

Sure! You can find all the details in this post. One small suggestion here— if you're implementing physical hardware, I'd recommend including the specifics of that, not just file a general request. That includes things like:

The specific details of what/why/how this functionality is important to your accessory.
Marketing links for shipping hardware.

Much of what the Matter spec has defined is extremely comprehensive, to the point that simply implementing the "full" spec isn't necessarily practical [1]. Because of that reality, it's important that enhancement requests don't just request what's missing, but actually describe the direct, not just theoretical, benefit to the user’s experience.

[1] See "Chapter 10. Media Device Types" of Matter Device Library Specification r1.3.0.1 for an extreme example of this.

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Kevin Elliott
DTS Engineer, CoreOS/Hardware