[Feature Request] Multiple Child Bridges from a single Plugin

[cylon147]

Quick Question: Room-Based Device Organization

Hi! I'm building a KNX plugin and need to organize devices by room. What's the best approach?

What I Want to Achieve

KNX Plugin
 ├── Living Room (container/aggregator)
 │   ├── Light
 │   ├── Outlet
 │   └── Blind
 ├── Bedroom (container/aggregator)
 │   ├── Light
 │   └── Sensor
 └── Kitchen (container/aggregator)
     ├── Light
     └── Blind

Use Case:

• Users create rooms via web dashboard
• Devices are assigned to rooms
• Need rooms visible in Matter topology (Apple Home, etc.)
• Rooms can be created dynamically at runtime

Specific Questions

1. What device type for room containers?

• aggregator?
• bridgedNode?
• Something else?

2. How to add child devices to room containers?

const roomAggregator = new MatterbridgeEndpoint(aggregator, {...});
await this.registerDevice(roomAggregator);

// Now what? How do I add devices as children?
const light = new MatterbridgeEndpoint(onOffLight, {...});
roomAggregator.??? // What method?

3. Can I create aggregators dynamically after onStart()?

// User clicks "Add Room" in UI
async createRoom(roomName: string) {
  const aggregator = new MatterbridgeEndpoint(aggregator, {...});
  await this.registerDevice(aggregator); // Safe to call here?
}

4. TypeScript imports?

// This gives error: "Module 'matterbridge' has no exported member 'aggregator'"
import { aggregator } from 'matterbridge';

// Should it be?
import { aggregator } from 'matterbridge/matterbridgeDeviceTypes';

What I've Tried

export class KnxPlatform extends MatterbridgeDynamicPlatform {
  private roomAggregators: Map<string, MatterbridgeEndpoint> = new Map();

  async onStart() {
    // Load rooms from JSON
    const rooms = [{id: '1', name: 'Living Room'}, ...];
    
    // Create aggregator per room
    for (const room of rooms) {
      const agg = new MatterbridgeEndpoint(aggregator, {
        uniqueId: `room-${room.id}`
      });
      await this.registerDevice(agg);
      this.roomAggregators.set(room.id, agg);
    }
    
    // Create devices - but how to attach to room aggregator?
    for (const device of devices) {
      const dev = new MatterbridgeEndpoint(onOffLight, {...});
      // ??? How to make `dev` a child of room aggregator?
    }
  }
}

Result: TypeScript errors, unclear how to establish parent-child relationship

Context

• Plugin Type: MatterbridgeDynamicPlatform
• Matterbridge Version: 3.3.0+
• Scale: ~15 rooms, ~100 devices
• Data Storage: JSON file with room-to-device mappings

Is There an Example?

Is there an existing plugin that does hierarchical grouping I can reference? I've looked at Shelly and Zigbee2MQTT but they register devices flat.

---

Any guidance appreciated! Happy to test approaches or provide more details.

[cylon147]

@Luligu Please help me with this

[Luligu]

Hi,
thanks for your interest.

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean but:

• server node and so aggregator are managed internally so you don't use them.
• you just register a device in your plugin.

See the matterbridge-plugin-template for the flow.

Concerning room assignements, there are 2 system in Matter to set a device in a room but at the moment both of them doesn't work on any controller so the user needs to move the devices in the correct room after the plugin is paired.

[cylon147]

If we can enable the creation of multiple child bridges (similar to how Homebridge works), users won’t need to manually move devices from the Default Room to their respective rooms. Instead, each child bridge can be assigned to a specific room — once the user adds that bridge to a room, all associated devices will automatically appear in that room. This approach will greatly simplify setup and significantly reduce configuration time.

[Luligu]

Yeah,
that is a possible workaround for Apple Home users but very complicated for end users and useless for the other controllers.

But is an interesting workaround for other needs (like having more then one topic in z2m).

I expect that sooner of later the controllers will comply with the Matter spec (ActionCluster) or any of the Label cluster.

Thanks!

[Apollon77]

Label cluster is dead baasically, When that ever comes then using Labels, but also this is currently not really seen anywhere. Action Cluster is also not really supported by any Ecosystem, so yes thats a "unsolved topic".

[torandreroland]

If we can enable the creation of multiple child bridges (similar to how Homebridge works), users won’t need to manually move devices from the Default Room to their respective rooms. Instead, each child bridge can be assigned to a specific room — once the user adds that bridge to a room, all associated devices will automatically appear in that room. This approach will greatly simplify setup and significantly reduce configuration time.

I would very much like to have the possibility to run multiple child bridges for the same plugin, so that e.g. I can differentiate which devices in Home Assistant I'm exposing to Google Home and Apple Home as controllers using the hass-plugin

[Luligu]

I understand and agree with you but is a very deep and complex enhancement (the plugins in all the code are a unique key).

It is on the todo list.

[torandreroland]

Thank you, @Luligu! I sort of expected that the plugin was used as a unique key and I understand that it's an architectural challenging change.

I very much appreciate your work with matterbridge. Excellent work!