> If you have a bunch of Zigbee devices, but at some point want to add some of the new ones, you need to start thinking about replacing all the perfectly working Zigbee devices or have a fragmented network.

Yes, if you're using the manufacturer's half-assed smartphone app, but if you're on Home Assistant, like basically anyone who's serious about their smart home, having multiple kinds of smart devices isn't really a problem. It's just one more radio to configure. Some people run both Zigbee and Zwave, some people run Zigbee + Wi-Fi or even Zigbee + Zwave + Wi-Fi + cloud integrations, Home Assistant doesn't care.

Yeah and matter needs internet access in many cases. It was supposed to be the saviour of open home automation. But in practice it leaves too many strings attached that the manufacturer can take advantage of.

And despite it not being open enough for open source enthusiasts, it's also got a bad name with manufacturers. I work for one and I asked why we wouldn't implement matter and thread and it was laughed off because apparently marketing will never give up their own app as a data collection and cross selling vehicle. Of course those are exactly the reasons I don't want this.

I didn't even know about the certification that only big players can do and the locked firmware requirements. It's ridiculous. Why were thread and matter hailed as the open revolution when they're exactly the opposite?

What a shit load of disinformation you are spreading. Read up on Matter and Thread, please.

> Can anyone here confirm that Matter/Thread will be a bright, open, and happy new future?

Sorry, it’s a closed ecosystem. It relies on PKI and device attestation to ensure that only devices from approved partners are usable. It’s unlikely that small players can participate, and zero chance of any homebrew scene.

The thread border gateway (Apple TV, HomePod, Google Nest Speaker, etc) sends an IPv6 router advertisement to the network for the Thread IP space. Multiple border gateways can advertise the same IP space for redundancy.

I have/had a segmented network, so I made sure my router accepted this route so that devices on different networks could communicate with the Thread devices. It worked, usually. However, I ran into some challenges with the reliability of communicating from my phone to various devices. I never quite got mDNS reflection 100% correct, and I strongly suspect that's my problem. If you look at an mDNS entry for a device, you'll see some advertise all their IPv6 addresses including link local (fe80::). I suspected some clients were dumb, trying the first IP they found, and giving up when it didn't work. I was working on modifying the golang mdns-reflector project to filter these entries. I had some success, but I haven't finished.

> It did always feel a bit awkward having Zigbee networking and IP networking competing over the same site

Funny, to me that's a feature. It makes the threat of a hacked device that exfiltrate data from within your network much less likely. I avoid any wifi device because of that.

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Matter was created by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), formerly known as the Zigbee Alliance! Basically, Matter is the next generation Zigbee. Thread as a protocol predates Matter, and it is just one of the supported transports, together with Wifi and Ethernet (for now).

Edit: One thing Matter adds that was not in Zigbee is Bluetooth provisioning, letting you use your phone to add a device to your network without QR codes or numbers to type in.

Also fun fact; Homeassistant is part of the CSA and apparently, Google, Apple and others use HA for testing!

As I understand it, Thread can transparently extend its mesh over regular IPv6 (Ethernet, Wi-Fi, etc), whereas extending a Zigbee (or Z-Wave) mesh beyond useful mesh range is a mess. I have a Z-Wave network that uses two controllers, and it sucks. It’s utterly obnoxious to maintain, the whole concept of multiple controllers is barely supported by zwave-js-ui, it is far to dumb to recover quickly on its own if it transiently loses connectivity to a node, and roaming between controllers is a complete non-starter.

I haven’t tried Thread yet, but I’m delighted by the concept of having a couple of easy-to-maintain base stations (routers or whatever they’re called) connected to the local network and having devices automatically roam between them.

I am not delighted by the fact that an Apple Home Thread network, a Google Home thread network, and a Home Assistant native thread network appear to be different things that are not entirely compatible with each other.

My understanding is that Thread is lower latency and lower power than Zigbee.

  safe as the internet, using proven IP technologies

It's pretty straightforward: Z-Wave is a closed (one company owns and controls the tech and brand) hub-bound mesh, and really should've been displaced by an open solution long ago. Matter is an industry-standard IPv6-based application layer that works over Thread (the successor to ZigBee) and Wi-Fi.

The newer DIRIGERA hub has both radios, and recently added full thread support in a firmware update, so you should be good if you have it. Otherwise, add that or an upcoming hub or migrate the old bulbs.

I love my Ikea smart home gear, it works really well. Odd that a cheap furniture store that sells meatballs seems to have a more coherent smart device strategy than major tech companies!

Looks to me like they'll continue to work. There are multiple mentions of backwards compatibility in the article.

Isn’t this the history of home automation? The money is in getting people locked into a “system,” but the systems are things that tend to rapidly become dated. So people will invest in a system and either get disillusioned due to the downside of lock in or the system goes obsolete and the newer stuff is not compatible because it’s a whole new system. Rinse, repeat.

There have been many attempts at industry standards but they fray around the edges. Nobody understands that a protocol and a spec is not a user experience, so the standards just become the basis for closed walled garden “systems.”

It’s why I stay away from it.

Why can’t it keep working via manual control?

That's such a shame. I bought quite a few IKEA devices as they were the cheapest in the market and were Zigbee-driven, which meant I could use it with my custom-made SmartHome software (which does what Home Assistant does but without a heavy runtime) and they connected with other manufacturer's devices (they form a mesh, so as long as you have a Zigbee device every few 10s of meters, the devices can communicate with the central hub even from very far away). I wonder if I will be able to connect to Thread devices at all now.

What stops you from adding a Thread border router and adding new Matter devices to Home Assistant? It works.

You just need a Thread border router and Matter devices connect to your HA without problems. I use Apple TV as a border router.

I don't know if there's an MQTT bridge yet. Generally, you run some kind of border router and connect through that. While the work doesn't seem complete yet, there's a guide to turn a Home Assistant install into a Thread border router if you have the necessary hardware: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/thread/#turning-h...

You can probably plumb Home Assistant into your MQTT server from there.

The question doesn't really make sense this way. Thread is more or less like Wi-Fi. It's a transport technology and protocol. It's HOW your devices can talk to each other. It's how they can say "I'm here and I can see 'AirPurifier324' over there."

Matter is a bit like HTTP. It's WHAT your devices say to each other. It's a way for them to say "Hi, I'm a lightbulb and you can change my color and brightness."

Yes but since it routes IPv6 and hubs are usually connected to the Internet when set up by the average consumer, it is very easy for Thread devices to "accidentally" gain Internet access.

Yes, local control is a key feature as well as multi-controller.

yes, that's the entire point of it