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I was disappointed when I saw that Matter chose to go with Thread. It's pretty terrible, even for home usage. I managed a solution that was initially based on

I was disappointed when I saw that Matter chose to go with Thread. It's pretty terrible, even for home usage. I managed a solution that was initially based on Thread but moved it over to a proprietary 802.15.4 protocol. - Entire network runs on a single radio channel... not very resistant to interference. Good luck in congested environments. Other protocols channel hop. - Only had 15ish channels you can operate on as opposed to other protocols that have up to 40. - If you have a lot of devices on the network, it can take hours for the mesh to form / re-form. - Horrible for battery powered devices. You get contention with a lot of and or chatty devices. There's no scheduling for transmitting so you have to "listen" with your receiver on until you "hear" nothing, then you transmit. Switching to a protocol that uses time slotting more than doubled our device's battery life.

solarkraft 3y ago
Damn, I had hope for Thread. I was hoping for something that works as well as Zigbee, but I can actually use. The documentation of OpenThread is amazing, so I was excited. > a proprietary 802.15.4 protocol A licensed existing solution or something custom? > Switching to a protocol that uses time slotting more than doubled our device's battery life. Do you think this applies to most use cases?
- c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago
  >A licensed existing solution or something custom? We went with something licensed. >Do you think this applies to most use cases? I should have included "time slotting AND channel hopping." Given how congested the 2.4GHz band is, I think it does apply to a lot of battery powered use cases (especially wearables). Some use cases see a far greater benefit than others. The deployment environment also plays a big part. If you have a lot of traffic on a channel, the radio hops to another channel so there's reduced error rates (reduced transmission reattempts = saved energy). If you have a quiet radio environment and a lot of devices that communicate infrequently or a very small number of devices on the mesh, you may not see a huge benefit. One downside of a time slot channel hopping protocol is that you need a more expensive crystal in your hardware for accurate time keeping/scheduling. Upside is that you have a reduced total cost of ownership as you need to buy fewer replaceable batteries.

solarkraft 3y ago

Damn, I had hope for Thread. I was hoping for something that works as well as Zigbee, but I can actually use. The documentation of OpenThread is amazing, so I was excited. > a proprietary 802.15.4 protocol A licensed existing solution or something custom? > Switching to a protocol that uses time slotting more than doubled our device's battery life. Do you think this applies to most use cases?

c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago
>A licensed existing solution or something custom? We went with something licensed. >Do you think this applies to most use cases? I should have included "time slotting AND channel hopping." Given how congested the 2.4GHz band is, I think it does apply to a lot of battery powered use cases (especially wearables). Some use cases see a far greater benefit than others. The deployment environment also plays a big part. If you have a lot of traffic on a channel, the radio hops to another channel so there's reduced error rates (reduced transmission reattempts = saved energy). If you have a quiet radio environment and a lot of devices that communicate infrequently or a very small number of devices on the mesh, you may not see a huge benefit. One downside of a time slot channel hopping protocol is that you need a more expensive crystal in your hardware for accurate time keeping/scheduling. Upside is that you have a reduced total cost of ownership as you need to buy fewer replaceable batteries.