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IKEA ditches Zigbee for Thread going all in on Matter smart homes

410 points by thunderbong 1y ago

sc970 1y ago
The new verge paywall seems to come out of no where, and seems to cover every article with no free limit?
Simulacra 1y ago
Paywalled. https://archive.is/uOHVR https://archive.is/uOHVR
AndrewDucker 1y ago
Paywall bypass: https://archive.is/8S1un https://archive.is/8S1un
vachina 1y ago
Haha. Imagine a light switch that becomes obsolete like your wireless router.
- lotsofpulp 1y ago
  Why can’t it keep working via manual control?
  - gorgoiler 1y ago
    These types of switches will always retain manual control. It is common to separate the user facing switch from the actual electronics and everything still works manually. This means you can take any new or existing switch furniture and make it smart: https://sonoff.tech/products/sonoff-mini-extreme-wi-fi-smart-switch-minir4 https://sonoff.tech/products/sonoff-mini-extreme-wi-fi-smart... This is good because manufacturers of well built physical switches are usually rubbish at technology, and high tech electronics manufacturers are rubbish at making aesthetically pleasing, durable switches. Separating them gives you the best of both of worlds. The obsolescence is in the radio integration whereby one day you can control it remotely, the next day you cannot.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    IF they design it to work that way it can. Do you trust the manufacture to do that though? This is not only do they need to design it that way, but also that they need to ensure it works in all the edge cases. I've been in software long enough to know there are a lot of weird edge cases nobody thinks of that are then missed for years.
    - lotsofpulp 1y ago
      If you toggle or otherwise manually manipulate a light switch, surely it is physically disconnecting the circuits? I don't see how that mechanism could ever not work, absent mechanical issues.
      - bluGill 1y ago
        A smart switch cannot be a toggle. It needs a relay of some sort so that it can be controlled by software. There is a switch you control, then something, then the relay. That something needs to work.
        lotsofpulp 1y ago
        Oh, I see. Thanks!
    - cheeze 1y ago
      > Do you trust the manufacture to do that though? ... Yes? I use Lutron so I'm less concerned about obsolescence... but yeah. Pretty much every smart light switch I've ever used is just a normal light switch with additional networking capabilites.
vardump 1y ago
Does Thread work without cloud?
- bananapub 1y ago
  yes, that's the entire point of it
- 0x000xca0xfe 1y ago
  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.
  - CharlesW 1y ago
    My understanding is that it can never be accidental since all access is mesh-local by default. You'd have to install a border router capable of supporting NAT64 features — SmartFriends™, I think this generally not possible with consumer border routers, correct? — and then explicitly enable it for a device.
- Toutouxc 1y ago
  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."
  - vardump 1y ago
    Ok, let me ask another way. Can it operate without an internet connection and with an open standard that lets the me, the user, to be in control using a hub (if necessary) and software I choose, including an open source option should I so choose? Or do I have to use proprietary hubs and software to control the devices? In short, are there any end user hostile features or can I use the devices like how Zigbee works?
nick__m 1y ago
I don't understand the problem that thread solves that zigbee doesn't! The article says that thread doesn't require a hub but it require a border gateway that is almost indistinguishable from a hub. And as far as my home assistant setup is concerned, it doesn't require a hub, only a zigbee radio. The only thing that seems to advantage thread is manufacturers support, but I don't see what's stopped them to regroup around zigbee. Any one has clues on why Thread was needed when zigbee already existed?
- AndrewDucker 1y ago
  My understanding is that Thread is lower latency and lower power than Zigbee.
  - nick__m 1y ago
    How is that possible when thread use an ipv6 stack over 802.15.4 while zigbee use a simpler stack also over 802.15.4 ? The only thing I see is that manufacturers prefer an ip stack because it's "easier" to develop for.
    - AndrewDucker 1y ago
      An excellent question - all I can do is point you at the research. See the top graph here: https://www.reddit.com/r/homeautomation/comments/nxmehn/clearing_up_confusion_thread_is_much_faster_than/ https://www.reddit.com/r/homeautomation/comments/nxmehn/clea...
      - nick__m 1y ago
        I should have been more precise, I don't doubt the claim about latency nor speed, but I really doubt that running an ipv6 stack requires less power than running the simpler zigbee stack. Also one Thread advantage from that discussion made me laugh: safe as the internet, using proven IP technologies But thanks you for answering me!
        1y ago
deleted 1y ago
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AndrewDucker 1y ago
I am hoping that this is the thing that triggers Matter/Thread to go mainstream. I'm currently blocked because Google and Amazon don't support "Generic Switches". Which means that if I switch over a light-bulb to being a smart one I can't use something like the Arre Smart Button to control them. Which seems like such a standard requirement that I do not understand why it's not supported. If Ikea will let me set that up then I'll be delighted.
- cheeze 1y ago
  For how much hype Matter had (I remember everyone saying "Just wait! Any day now!") it sure... hasn't delivered
  - AndrewDucker 1y ago
    Yeah. I've got it up and running with some Nanoleaf lights and Amazon Echo running as border routers, and it's rock solid nowadays. But my wife hates voice-controlled devices, so I can't put them in elsewhere until I can slap in some buttons to control them. And that's basically not supported, which leaves me thinking that either the spec is a disaster or Google/Amazon are deliberately kneecapping it.
- brulard 1y ago
  I'm not sure what I am missing, but isn't it completely possible to connect any kind of smart button to control a light bulb? Isn't this exactly what home assistant is being used for? I only tried it, but was able to add a generic smart button to HA and let it control a USB switch with some led lights. How is your use case different? UPDATE: Ok, is this about the state of Matter implementation? I think I misunderstood that.
gorgoiler 1y ago
My first reaction here was horror: Home Assistant and Zigbee integrate perfectly with IKEA’s devices, and the devices are beautifully designed! Please don’t take these away! Only the other day did I marvel at how a low battery indicator flashes on one of my remotes when I use it. A design flourish that I really appreciated. But I read that Thread supports IPv6 via mesh networking. It did always feel a bit awkward having Zigbee networking and IP networking competing over the same site. It would be very nice to issue commands from any peer to any other peer, using standard networking. Can anyone here confirm that Matter/Thread will be a bright, open, and happy new future? A lot of people I know would scoff at “smart home” stuff. I used to. Having a programmable house is incredibly useful though. When all your lights and sensors are available for programming you can do stuff that’s cool not because it is particularly innovative but because it is incredibly easy to implement: - my partner can control a “do not enter, call in progress” red light bulb; - my outside lights trigger off PIR, door sensors, or Ring motion detection; - I have a series of indoor lamps come on in succession if motion is detected outside at night; - we programmed a push button to turn a light green on one tap and red on a double tap for a fun game of twenty questions; - and my indoor Ring cameras shut down unless both my partner and I are out of the house. All of these things were trivial to do given that everything is available on one Home Assistant instance!
- WhyNotHugo 1y ago
  > 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.
  - madwolf 1y ago
    What? You can buy a very cheap ESP32 with Thread and easily build your own device with Matter/Thread and it will work. Doesn't seem that closed. There is OpenThread that is an open source implementation of Thread. Home Assistant is compatible with Matter over Thread devices... What's closed about this?
mft_ 1y ago
Huh... anyone know what this will mean for people with legacy Ikea lightbulbs and hub? e.g. if I add future Ikea lightbulbs or other equipment, will this mean managing them via a different system? (By the by, I've been very happy with Ikea bulbs so far; while other people complain of LED bulbs with a short lifespan, [touches wood] I've not had a single failure with Ikea smart bulbs, with ~7 years and counting on one of mine.)
- api 1y ago
  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.
  - nick__m 1y ago
    That's the strength of a DIY approach backed by a community of users like homeassistant, it doesn't get obsolete. I will just have make sure that I have a spare zigbee radio in case they eventually disappear from the market.
  - jkestner 1y ago
    “[Matter in its current version] doesn’t really help resolve the key issue of the smart home, namely that most companies view smart homes as a way to sell more individual devices and generate recurring revenue.” https://staceyoniot.com/matter-only-solves-about-one-of-the-smart-home-core-issues/ https://staceyoniot.com/matter-only-solves-about-one-of-the-...
  - madwolf 1y ago
    I mean... I have an Aqara Matter over Thread smart lock that connects via AppleTV (which is a Thread border router) to Home Assistant. And I can control the lock both with HA and Apple HomeKit. And this whole thing works flawlessly. Aqara, Apple, open source HA. Never thought this would be so smooth. I think the whole point of Matter is that the devices are manufacturer independent and you can use any device with any hub.
WhyNotHugo 1y ago
This sucks. Matter is a closed ecosystem, enforced using a public key infrastructure (PKI) and device attestation certificates. Thread seems to require paying royalties if you want to ship devices. It’s disappointing that IKEA claims that this move is towards a more open ecosystem. On top of that, the switch breaks compatibility with existing hardware (except for the Touchlink functionality). 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.
- Toutouxc 1y ago
  > 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.
  - darkwater 1y ago
    Yes, but then you have a hard-dependency on HA for inter-network communication, which I try to avoid as much as possible (but I fail to, for a couple of subsystems). My failure model is: 1) no electricity, everything down but fiber, wifi, HA and the doorbell (they run off an UPS) 2) internet down: no problem, you just cannot reach the home automation from outside 3) Home assistant down: zigbee devices are paired together (like buttons + bulbs) or I have physical zigbee relays controlling dumb bulbs. But, as said, I have some subsystem not fully working when (3) happens, like a zigbee button controlling a tasmota-based fan control.
    - orev 1y ago
      I consider it a requirement of any smart home that alternative methods need to be available during failures. Simply having other devices around that aren’t smart, like an old fashioned light bulb and physical switch to get you through until you can fix whatever is down. 100% uptime is very difficult for large, well-funded IT companies, so I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect it from these consumer-grade devices. We survived for over 100 years by getting up and flipping a wall switch, so the risk of a few hours without smart features shouldn’t be a showstopper.
whitehexagon 1y ago
I only recently discovered and invested in the IKEA ZigBee hardware, about the only product their MBAs havent destroyed. The hardware is very well built, and sensibly priced. What I liked most of all was that the hub was optional, and thus no cloud account required. I ended up pairing mine with a 'ConBee II' and with a bit of Go code was able to receive sensor data with very little latency, and activate switches and lights very quickly. What a shame they discontinue such a great product line. But I already decided this is the last home automation technology I'll invest in. ZigBee seems perfectly suited for this role, and no idea why we need yet another new standard. Although I also said that switching away from x10, if anyone still remembers that.
- ocdtrekkie 1y ago
  My house is largely Insteon-based, which used to be backwards-compatible with X10.
  - whitehexagon 1y ago
    Nice, the posh stuff! I seem to recall that system included remote access and nice control panels. I managed to get remote access working via an iobridge IO-204 X10 module and a custom iOS App. Great fun. I still have the X10 stuff lying around because I was then trying for local only using the X10 serial controller that I never managed to hack.
mongol 1y ago
My IKEA was missing a lot of Trådfri assortment when I visited this week. I started to have doubts if they had abandoned the home automation niche. Now when I am searching their site, much is gone. But I guess they are clearing the inventory for a Threads relaunch
- brabel 1y ago
  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.
- kassner 1y ago
  I’d not read much into that. My local IKEAs have stock issues since 2020. There is always a couple of products that are completely gone. They are also pretty good at labeling the products in their website, you can search by “last chance to buy” (or local language equivalent) to see the list.
mongol 1y ago
What is the equivalent for zigbee2mqtt for Matter/Threads?
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  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-home-assistant-into-a-thread-border-router https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/thread/#turning-h... You can probably plumb Home Assistant into your MQTT server from there.
- madwolf 1y ago
  You just need a Thread border router and Matter devices connect to your HA without problems. I use Apple TV as a border router.
  - philjohn 1y ago
    SMLight also do their PoE sticks that can be flashed to either talk Zigbee or Thread (but you'll need a border router, such as the OpenThread border router). Their latest one has two radios so you can do both Zigbee and Thread from a single device. I've found however, that Thread prefers several border routers around my house to operate well.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    That is my sticking point - every border router I can find has a bunch of other things I don't want. I don't want my lights available from the internet, I just want to turn on the shed outside light from inside the house when I have guests. (since they are likely to park by the shed and walk to the house) That is I don't want google/amazon/samsung/apple to control my house. Most border routers are also connect to our smart home system. (there are exceptions but it isn't clear if they are better)
    - nagisa 1y ago
evadne 1y ago
This is horrible news. Zigbee has been trouble-free and Thread has been nothing but Trouble to the point I had to throw out everything based on Thread…
victorbjorklund 1y ago
This really sucks. I have a smart home with home assistant and most of my things are Zigbee and Ikea stuff are great. They are affordable and they are high quality. So now I have to find another provider of especially light bulbs.
- madwolf 1y ago
  What stops you from adding a Thread border router and adding new Matter devices to Home Assistant? It works.
throwaway984393 1y ago
"A software development kit (SDK) is provided royalty-free,[13][14] though the ability to commission a finished product into a Matter network in the field mandates certification and membership fees,[15][16] entailing both one-time, recurring, and per-product costs.[17] This is enforced using a public key infrastructure (PKI) and so-called device attestation certificates.[15]" So it's a closed ecosystem that makes money for a cabal of corporations
- CharlesW 1y ago
  It's "closed" in the same way that all open wireless standards (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.) are closed. You can read the spec, use the open source SDK, and build devices without paying a cent. If you want to participate as more than a hobbyist, you'll need to join the CSA (a non-profit mutual-benefit corporation). This will cost a bit less than half of what it cost manufacturers to join the equivalent organization for Z-Wave — a closed, single-vendor, non-IP-based solution that was state-of-the-art 25 years ago. Money paid by commercial vendors funds stuff like test labs, interop events, and compliance support systems.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
    > It's "closed" in the same way that all open wireless standards (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.) are closed. You can read the spec, use the open source SDK, and build devices without paying a cent. My understanding - correct me if I'm wrong - is that it's not quite the same; I'm pretty sure you can make a wifi card on your own (maybe modulo FCC approval, but that's true of any radio) and you might not be allowed to put an official wifi logo on it without a license but it'll work without needing to see an officially signed cert or the user having to touch developer settings.
    - CharlesW 1y ago
      Matter has a small but growing hobbyist community. A recent project I saw via https://www.reddit.com/r/MatterProtocol/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MatterProtocol/: (1) https://tomasmcguinness.com/2025/06/27/matter-building-a-tiny-dishwasher-with-an-esp32/ https://tomasmcguinness.com/2025/06/27/matter-building-a-tin... (2) https://tomasmcguinness.com/2025/06/30/matter-tiny-dishwasher-adding-phases/ https://tomasmcguinness.com/2025/06/30/matter-tiny-dishwashe... You can definitely add uncertified accessories (using CSA test Vendor ID 0xFFF1) to HomeKit via an "Add Anyway" confirmation. Because Apple tends to be extremely conservative about this kind of stuff, I'd expect that all systems that support Matter would allow this.
snickerdoodle12 1y ago
RIP. The ikea zigbee stuff was close to being best in class. Matter is still an unusable mess.
- CharlesW 1y ago
  In my experience, Matter already works better than Zigbee and Z-Wave ever did, and it gets better every year. I'm interested in what your unusable mess of a system consists of, if you don't mind elaborating.
  - kstrauser 1y ago
    That’s been my experience. My older Zigbee/Z-Wave stuff seemed to work… up until it didn’t, and then cue wailing and gnashing of teeth. My Matter gear was initially a little flaky but is now vastly more reliable than Zigbee ever was.
  - snickerdoodle12 1y ago
    Just look at how long this page is: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/matter/ https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/matter/ Adding a device now requires a whole song & dance with bluetooth, a mobile phone and god knows what else. Meanwhile zigbee is: 1. Buy a zigbee stick, there are dozens, they all work great 2. Press the permit join button in home assistant 3. Press a button on the device for 10 seconds or 3 times or whatever 4. You're done and it works! Oh, and for some reason https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/matter/#experiment-with-matter-using-a-esp32-dev-board https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/matter/#experimen... involves google cloud in the process of me testing a device I created locally on my own network The final nail in the coffin is: > It is recommended to run the Matter add-on on Home Assistant OS. This is currently the only supported option. Other installation types are without support and at your own risk. So I can't even officially use this stuff without uprooting my entire operating system.
    - amanda99 1y ago
      Look, I agree with you and as someone with Home Assistant, I much prefer Zigbee. But if you imagine a typical consumer, not a tech nerd, I think "smartphone and bluetooth" is by far preferable to your 4-step process.
yesimahuman 1y ago
Unfortunately, the writing's on the wall for mainstream adoption of Zigbee. For me, Leviton not making any more Zigbee smart switches was the last straw and I've prioritized Z-wave devices where possible. I also get much better performance out of Z-wave. Sad to see though, as the Zigbee devices I do have are working just fine. I don't really get the point of Matter or Thread when Z-wave works so well.
- CharlesW 1y ago
  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.
  - mox1 1y ago
    Z-wave also uses 900mhz in the US, which penetrates walls better and has less competition with 2.4 (Zigbee). So while its closed, it usually more performant than Zigbee (in my experience...)
  - philjohn 1y ago
    Yes - but it does feel over-engineered in some places (for good reason, having device profiles that everyone adheres to makes supporting a new device of a given class a doddle for smart home platforms) and it is definitely more finicky at present to pair devices than with Zigbee. If I had to wipe and re-setup my smart home with 100 Zigbee devices and 18 Matter over Thread devices (Tado smart thermostat and TRV's) the Zigbee devices would take me about half an hour in total to have back up and running in HomeAssistant, the Matter over Thread devices would take me around 2-3 hours as you have to pair them one-at-a-time.
    - CharlesW 1y ago
      > If I had to wipe and re-setup my smart home with 100 Zigbee devices… FWIW, this is purely an HA issue, not a Matter one. Once HA includes the Matter credential store in backups/restores, the experience will be the same. Out of curiosity, what is the reason you find yourself completely wiping and re-pairing all of your Z-Wave devices?
pmarreck 1y ago
I use some sort of cobbled together solution with Philips Vue lights, a couple of LIFX lights, halfway set up HomeKit, the Vue app, some Alexa integration, some sort of gateway that I believe connects Zigbee to my LAN... .. but all I can remember from growing up is the X-10 POWERHOUSE
elcapitan 1y ago
Apparently "smart home" means that it's now a knowledge worker job to operate a lightswitch.
deleted 1y ago
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tzs 1y ago
Warning: a bit of a rant incoming... I've found Matter totally confusing. Given a device that supports Matter (e.g., a smart plug) and a set of devices I want to control that from (e.g., an Amazon Echo and an iPad) it is not clear to me what else I need. Apparently I need a "controller", which is not necessarily the thing that I as a user would think of the controller--as a user I think of the controller as the device I issue command from. A Matter controller is apparently a hub for connecting the thing I'm using to issue commands to the IOT device I want to control. And maybe I need a "Thread border router"? As far as the controller goes, apparently at some point Apple added the ability for iPads to be Matter controllers, so you could use a Matter device with just an iPad (if the Matter device used WiFi...if it used Thread then you would need a separate Matter controller and I'd guess one of those Thread border routers). I was able to briefly use a Matter smart plug with my iPad without having a separate hub, but it stopped working not too long after. I deleted the plug from the iPad and did a factory reset on the plug and tried setting up again, but now when the iPad searches for the device during setup it doesn't even see it. Apple still has instructions on their site for setting up devices for direct use from iPad, but several sites on the net report that they actually dropped that support from iPad. So lets say I go get an actual Matter hub. Do I need a separate hubs for using my Matter devices from my Apple devices and using my Matter devices from my Amazon devices? How about if I need a Thread border router--will I need one for Apple and one for Amazon? What if I add Home Assistant later--am I going to need a third hub? All I'm really trying to do for now is use this one TP-Link Tapo smart plug that supports Matter from Apple Shortcuts without having to use the Tapo app. The Tapo app does integrate with Shortcuts but you have to be logged in to your TP-Link account on the app for it to work. Every so often you have to re-login, breaking your shortcuts until you do. What I'm currently considering is installing Home Assistant somewhere, probably in a VM on my Mac for now but latter on a dedicated RPi if the experiments in a VM show that it will work, and setting it up to be my Matter controller for the smart plug. Shortcuts (or Siri) won't be able to directly use Matter to control the plug with that setup, but there is a Home Assistant app for iOS/iPadOS that can do so and that supports Shortcuts. It will basically be like I'm doing now with the Tapo app but instead with the Home Assistant app and no need to be logged in to TP-Link (or to even have internet access). PS: I wouldn't need any of this if Apple would just get around to implementing for iPadOS the same 80% charge limit option that they have had on iOS for ages. I'm using the smart plug and Shortcuts as a kludge while waiting for that. I charge through the smart plug and have a Shortcut automation to turn off the smart plug when the iPad's battery level rises above 80%.
Gi-hun 1y ago
Leggi tutto
AlexandrB 1y ago
Matter has been very disappointing so far, with very unreliable connectivity and behavior (using Apple TV as a border gateway). I basically gave up on it and prefer to use non-Matter HomeKit hardware (usually WiFi) where I can. Don't know if Zigbee was better, but it can hardly be worse.
wetpaws 1y ago
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marsven_422 1y ago
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the_mitsuhiko 1y ago
I'm pretty sure this is misreporting, and these devices actually support Matter as well as Zigbee.
jauntywundrkind 1y ago
The lamp+speaker is interesting. Wish it had usb-c for power, and or wireless charging. A pity there's no home standards for audio streaming. Matter Cast is an abomination, unfortunately: from what I can tell it requires native apps for each device, and there's not really an app store system, and indeed seemingly many devices only can stream via the pre-installed software!! Really emphasizes the incredible power of Netflix's DIAL protocol, which tells a device to go to a URL & opens some command channels. Which is, if you squint, what Chromecast 's protocol was for a long long time (now I think there's also the ability to ship native apps to devices too?). Really glad to see Ikea on board here. This creates a lot of pressure for other devices makers to modernize & use the much improved Matter stack, with much better network performance & much more standardization for Apple Google & potentially other control fabrics to make viable home systems, something Z-wave and Zigbee weren't positioned to make great progress on.
aerostable_slug 1y ago
We could have had ZigBee Smart Energy Profile 2.0 running all of this, with the glory and righteousness of IP networking everywhere. Oh well...
maxglute 1y ago
First daim chocolate, now zigbee...
riknos314 1y ago
This could easily have as much to do with support costs as anything with the technical side of the protocols. A member of my family works in customer support for a company making devices using both zigbee and thread, and claims that support calls for debugging zigbee are often among the longest (and thus most expensive) calls they handle. Unsure what IKEA's tech support looks like, but I assume that most issues not solved by support turn into returns, which are also bad for the bottom line.
rkagerer 1y ago
Well IKEA, I'm not going to buy and "smart" products from you.
windex 1y ago
zigbee has been generally flaky for me, and I dont know if the problem are these tiny coin batteries or the actual sonoff hardware.

410 points by thunderbong 1y ago

sc970 1y ago

The new verge paywall seems to come out of no where, and seems to cover every article with no free limit?

Simulacra 1y ago

Paywalled. https://archive.is/uOHVR https://archive.is/uOHVR

AndrewDucker 1y ago

Paywall bypass: https://archive.is/8S1un https://archive.is/8S1un

vachina 1y ago

Haha. Imagine a light switch that becomes obsolete like your wireless router.

lotsofpulp 1y ago
Why can’t it keep working via manual control?
- gorgoiler 1y ago
  These types of switches will always retain manual control. It is common to separate the user facing switch from the actual electronics and everything still works manually. This means you can take any new or existing switch furniture and make it smart: https://sonoff.tech/products/sonoff-mini-extreme-wi-fi-smart-switch-minir4 https://sonoff.tech/products/sonoff-mini-extreme-wi-fi-smart... This is good because manufacturers of well built physical switches are usually rubbish at technology, and high tech electronics manufacturers are rubbish at making aesthetically pleasing, durable switches. Separating them gives you the best of both of worlds. The obsolescence is in the radio integration whereby one day you can control it remotely, the next day you cannot.
- bluGill 1y ago
  IF they design it to work that way it can. Do you trust the manufacture to do that though? This is not only do they need to design it that way, but also that they need to ensure it works in all the edge cases. I've been in software long enough to know there are a lot of weird edge cases nobody thinks of that are then missed for years.
  - lotsofpulp 1y ago
    If you toggle or otherwise manually manipulate a light switch, surely it is physically disconnecting the circuits? I don't see how that mechanism could ever not work, absent mechanical issues.
    - bluGill 1y ago
      A smart switch cannot be a toggle. It needs a relay of some sort so that it can be controlled by software. There is a switch you control, then something, then the relay. That something needs to work.
      - lotsofpulp 1y ago
        Oh, I see. Thanks!
  - cheeze 1y ago
    > Do you trust the manufacture to do that though? ... Yes? I use Lutron so I'm less concerned about obsolescence... but yeah. Pretty much every smart light switch I've ever used is just a normal light switch with additional networking capabilites.

vardump 1y ago

Does Thread work without cloud?

bananapub 1y ago
yes, that's the entire point of it
0x000xca0xfe 1y ago
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.
- CharlesW 1y ago
  My understanding is that it can never be accidental since all access is mesh-local by default. You'd have to install a border router capable of supporting NAT64 features — SmartFriends™, I think this generally not possible with consumer border routers, correct? — and then explicitly enable it for a device.
Toutouxc 1y ago
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."
- vardump 1y ago
  Ok, let me ask another way. Can it operate without an internet connection and with an open standard that lets the me, the user, to be in control using a hub (if necessary) and software I choose, including an open source option should I so choose? Or do I have to use proprietary hubs and software to control the devices? In short, are there any end user hostile features or can I use the devices like how Zigbee works?

nick__m 1y ago

I don't understand the problem that thread solves that zigbee doesn't! The article says that thread doesn't require a hub but it require a border gateway that is almost indistinguishable from a hub. And as far as my home assistant setup is concerned, it doesn't require a hub, only a zigbee radio. The only thing that seems to advantage thread is manufacturers support, but I don't see what's stopped them to regroup around zigbee. Any one has clues on why Thread was needed when zigbee already existed?

AndrewDucker 1y ago
My understanding is that Thread is lower latency and lower power than Zigbee.
- nick__m 1y ago
  How is that possible when thread use an ipv6 stack over 802.15.4 while zigbee use a simpler stack also over 802.15.4 ? The only thing I see is that manufacturers prefer an ip stack because it's "easier" to develop for.
  - AndrewDucker 1y ago
    An excellent question - all I can do is point you at the research. See the top graph here: https://www.reddit.com/r/homeautomation/comments/nxmehn/clearing_up_confusion_thread_is_much_faster_than/ https://www.reddit.com/r/homeautomation/comments/nxmehn/clea...
    - nick__m 1y ago
      I should have been more precise, I don't doubt the claim about latency nor speed, but I really doubt that running an ipv6 stack requires less power than running the simpler zigbee stack. Also one Thread advantage from that discussion made me laugh: safe as the internet, using proven IP technologies But thanks you for answering me!
      - 1y ago

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AndrewDucker 1y ago

I am hoping that this is the thing that triggers Matter/Thread to go mainstream. I'm currently blocked because Google and Amazon don't support "Generic Switches". Which means that if I switch over a light-bulb to being a smart one I can't use something like the Arre Smart Button to control them. Which seems like such a standard requirement that I do not understand why it's not supported. If Ikea will let me set that up then I'll be delighted.

cheeze 1y ago
For how much hype Matter had (I remember everyone saying "Just wait! Any day now!") it sure... hasn't delivered
- AndrewDucker 1y ago
  Yeah. I've got it up and running with some Nanoleaf lights and Amazon Echo running as border routers, and it's rock solid nowadays. But my wife hates voice-controlled devices, so I can't put them in elsewhere until I can slap in some buttons to control them. And that's basically not supported, which leaves me thinking that either the spec is a disaster or Google/Amazon are deliberately kneecapping it.
brulard 1y ago
I'm not sure what I am missing, but isn't it completely possible to connect any kind of smart button to control a light bulb? Isn't this exactly what home assistant is being used for? I only tried it, but was able to add a generic smart button to HA and let it control a USB switch with some led lights. How is your use case different? UPDATE: Ok, is this about the state of Matter implementation? I think I misunderstood that.

gorgoiler 1y ago

My first reaction here was horror: Home Assistant and Zigbee integrate perfectly with IKEA’s devices, and the devices are beautifully designed! Please don’t take these away! Only the other day did I marvel at how a low battery indicator flashes on one of my remotes when I use it. A design flourish that I really appreciated. But I read that Thread supports IPv6 via mesh networking. It did always feel a bit awkward having Zigbee networking and IP networking competing over the same site. It would be very nice to issue commands from any peer to any other peer, using standard networking. Can anyone here confirm that Matter/Thread will be a bright, open, and happy new future? A lot of people I know would scoff at “smart home” stuff. I used to. Having a programmable house is incredibly useful though. When all your lights and sensors are available for programming you can do stuff that’s cool not because it is particularly innovative but because it is incredibly easy to implement: - my partner can control a “do not enter, call in progress” red light bulb; - my outside lights trigger off PIR, door sensors, or Ring motion detection; - I have a series of indoor lamps come on in succession if motion is detected outside at night; - we programmed a push button to turn a light green on one tap and red on a double tap for a fun game of twenty questions; - and my indoor Ring cameras shut down unless both my partner and I are out of the house. All of these things were trivial to do given that everything is available on one Home Assistant instance!

WhyNotHugo 1y ago
> 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.
- madwolf 1y ago
  What? You can buy a very cheap ESP32 with Thread and easily build your own device with Matter/Thread and it will work. Doesn't seem that closed. There is OpenThread that is an open source implementation of Thread. Home Assistant is compatible with Matter over Thread devices... What's closed about this?

mft_ 1y ago

Huh... anyone know what this will mean for people with legacy Ikea lightbulbs and hub? e.g. if I add future Ikea lightbulbs or other equipment, will this mean managing them via a different system? (By the by, I've been very happy with Ikea bulbs so far; while other people complain of LED bulbs with a short lifespan, [touches wood] I've not had a single failure with Ikea smart bulbs, with ~7 years and counting on one of mine.)

api 1y ago
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.
- nick__m 1y ago
  That's the strength of a DIY approach backed by a community of users like homeassistant, it doesn't get obsolete. I will just have make sure that I have a spare zigbee radio in case they eventually disappear from the market.
- jkestner 1y ago
  “[Matter in its current version] doesn’t really help resolve the key issue of the smart home, namely that most companies view smart homes as a way to sell more individual devices and generate recurring revenue.” https://staceyoniot.com/matter-only-solves-about-one-of-the-smart-home-core-issues/ https://staceyoniot.com/matter-only-solves-about-one-of-the-...
- madwolf 1y ago
  I mean... I have an Aqara Matter over Thread smart lock that connects via AppleTV (which is a Thread border router) to Home Assistant. And I can control the lock both with HA and Apple HomeKit. And this whole thing works flawlessly. Aqara, Apple, open source HA. Never thought this would be so smooth. I think the whole point of Matter is that the devices are manufacturer independent and you can use any device with any hub.

WhyNotHugo 1y ago

This sucks. Matter is a closed ecosystem, enforced using a public key infrastructure (PKI) and device attestation certificates. Thread seems to require paying royalties if you want to ship devices. It’s disappointing that IKEA claims that this move is towards a more open ecosystem. On top of that, the switch breaks compatibility with existing hardware (except for the Touchlink functionality). 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.

Toutouxc 1y ago
> 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.
- darkwater 1y ago
  Yes, but then you have a hard-dependency on HA for inter-network communication, which I try to avoid as much as possible (but I fail to, for a couple of subsystems). My failure model is: 1) no electricity, everything down but fiber, wifi, HA and the doorbell (they run off an UPS) 2) internet down: no problem, you just cannot reach the home automation from outside 3) Home assistant down: zigbee devices are paired together (like buttons + bulbs) or I have physical zigbee relays controlling dumb bulbs. But, as said, I have some subsystem not fully working when (3) happens, like a zigbee button controlling a tasmota-based fan control.
  - orev 1y ago
    I consider it a requirement of any smart home that alternative methods need to be available during failures. Simply having other devices around that aren’t smart, like an old fashioned light bulb and physical switch to get you through until you can fix whatever is down. 100% uptime is very difficult for large, well-funded IT companies, so I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect it from these consumer-grade devices. We survived for over 100 years by getting up and flipping a wall switch, so the risk of a few hours without smart features shouldn’t be a showstopper.

whitehexagon 1y ago

I only recently discovered and invested in the IKEA ZigBee hardware, about the only product their MBAs havent destroyed. The hardware is very well built, and sensibly priced. What I liked most of all was that the hub was optional, and thus no cloud account required. I ended up pairing mine with a 'ConBee II' and with a bit of Go code was able to receive sensor data with very little latency, and activate switches and lights very quickly. What a shame they discontinue such a great product line. But I already decided this is the last home automation technology I'll invest in. ZigBee seems perfectly suited for this role, and no idea why we need yet another new standard. Although I also said that switching away from x10, if anyone still remembers that.

ocdtrekkie 1y ago
My house is largely Insteon-based, which used to be backwards-compatible with X10.
- whitehexagon 1y ago
  Nice, the posh stuff! I seem to recall that system included remote access and nice control panels. I managed to get remote access working via an iobridge IO-204 X10 module and a custom iOS App. Great fun. I still have the X10 stuff lying around because I was then trying for local only using the X10 serial controller that I never managed to hack.

mongol 1y ago

My IKEA was missing a lot of Trådfri assortment when I visited this week. I started to have doubts if they had abandoned the home automation niche. Now when I am searching their site, much is gone. But I guess they are clearing the inventory for a Threads relaunch

brabel 1y ago
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.
kassner 1y ago
I’d not read much into that. My local IKEAs have stock issues since 2020. There is always a couple of products that are completely gone. They are also pretty good at labeling the products in their website, you can search by “last chance to buy” (or local language equivalent) to see the list.

mongol 1y ago

What is the equivalent for zigbee2mqtt for Matter/Threads?

jeroenhd 1y ago
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-home-assistant-into-a-thread-border-router https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/thread/#turning-h... You can probably plumb Home Assistant into your MQTT server from there.
madwolf 1y ago
You just need a Thread border router and Matter devices connect to your HA without problems. I use Apple TV as a border router.
- philjohn 1y ago
  SMLight also do their PoE sticks that can be flashed to either talk Zigbee or Thread (but you'll need a border router, such as the OpenThread border router). Their latest one has two radios so you can do both Zigbee and Thread from a single device. I've found however, that Thread prefers several border routers around my house to operate well.
- bluGill 1y ago
  That is my sticking point - every border router I can find has a bunch of other things I don't want. I don't want my lights available from the internet, I just want to turn on the shed outside light from inside the house when I have guests. (since they are likely to park by the shed and walk to the house) That is I don't want google/amazon/samsung/apple to control my house. Most border routers are also connect to our smart home system. (there are exceptions but it isn't clear if they are better)
  - nagisa 1y ago

evadne 1y ago

This is horrible news. Zigbee has been trouble-free and Thread has been nothing but Trouble to the point I had to throw out everything based on Thread…

victorbjorklund 1y ago

This really sucks. I have a smart home with home assistant and most of my things are Zigbee and Ikea stuff are great. They are affordable and they are high quality. So now I have to find another provider of especially light bulbs.

madwolf 1y ago
What stops you from adding a Thread border router and adding new Matter devices to Home Assistant? It works.

throwaway984393 1y ago

"A software development kit (SDK) is provided royalty-free,[13][14] though the ability to commission a finished product into a Matter network in the field mandates certification and membership fees,[15][16] entailing both one-time, recurring, and per-product costs.[17] This is enforced using a public key infrastructure (PKI) and so-called device attestation certificates.[15]" So it's a closed ecosystem that makes money for a cabal of corporations

CharlesW 1y ago
It's "closed" in the same way that all open wireless standards (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.) are closed. You can read the spec, use the open source SDK, and build devices without paying a cent. If you want to participate as more than a hobbyist, you'll need to join the CSA (a non-profit mutual-benefit corporation). This will cost a bit less than half of what it cost manufacturers to join the equivalent organization for Z-Wave — a closed, single-vendor, non-IP-based solution that was state-of-the-art 25 years ago. Money paid by commercial vendors funds stuff like test labs, interop events, and compliance support systems.
- yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
  > It's "closed" in the same way that all open wireless standards (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.) are closed. You can read the spec, use the open source SDK, and build devices without paying a cent. My understanding - correct me if I'm wrong - is that it's not quite the same; I'm pretty sure you can make a wifi card on your own (maybe modulo FCC approval, but that's true of any radio) and you might not be allowed to put an official wifi logo on it without a license but it'll work without needing to see an officially signed cert or the user having to touch developer settings.
  - CharlesW 1y ago
    Matter has a small but growing hobbyist community. A recent project I saw via https://www.reddit.com/r/MatterProtocol/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MatterProtocol/: (1) https://tomasmcguinness.com/2025/06/27/matter-building-a-tiny-dishwasher-with-an-esp32/ https://tomasmcguinness.com/2025/06/27/matter-building-a-tin... (2) https://tomasmcguinness.com/2025/06/30/matter-tiny-dishwasher-adding-phases/ https://tomasmcguinness.com/2025/06/30/matter-tiny-dishwashe... You can definitely add uncertified accessories (using CSA test Vendor ID 0xFFF1) to HomeKit via an "Add Anyway" confirmation. Because Apple tends to be extremely conservative about this kind of stuff, I'd expect that all systems that support Matter would allow this.

snickerdoodle12 1y ago

RIP. The ikea zigbee stuff was close to being best in class. Matter is still an unusable mess.

CharlesW 1y ago
In my experience, Matter already works better than Zigbee and Z-Wave ever did, and it gets better every year. I'm interested in what your unusable mess of a system consists of, if you don't mind elaborating.
- kstrauser 1y ago
  That’s been my experience. My older Zigbee/Z-Wave stuff seemed to work… up until it didn’t, and then cue wailing and gnashing of teeth. My Matter gear was initially a little flaky but is now vastly more reliable than Zigbee ever was.
- snickerdoodle12 1y ago
  Just look at how long this page is: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/matter/ https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/matter/ Adding a device now requires a whole song & dance with bluetooth, a mobile phone and god knows what else. Meanwhile zigbee is: 1. Buy a zigbee stick, there are dozens, they all work great 2. Press the permit join button in home assistant 3. Press a button on the device for 10 seconds or 3 times or whatever 4. You're done and it works! Oh, and for some reason https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/matter/#experiment-with-matter-using-a-esp32-dev-board https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/matter/#experimen... involves google cloud in the process of me testing a device I created locally on my own network The final nail in the coffin is: > It is recommended to run the Matter add-on on Home Assistant OS. This is currently the only supported option. Other installation types are without support and at your own risk. So I can't even officially use this stuff without uprooting my entire operating system.
  - amanda99 1y ago
    Look, I agree with you and as someone with Home Assistant, I much prefer Zigbee. But if you imagine a typical consumer, not a tech nerd, I think "smartphone and bluetooth" is by far preferable to your 4-step process.

yesimahuman 1y ago

Unfortunately, the writing's on the wall for mainstream adoption of Zigbee. For me, Leviton not making any more Zigbee smart switches was the last straw and I've prioritized Z-wave devices where possible. I also get much better performance out of Z-wave. Sad to see though, as the Zigbee devices I do have are working just fine. I don't really get the point of Matter or Thread when Z-wave works so well.

CharlesW 1y ago
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.
- mox1 1y ago
  Z-wave also uses 900mhz in the US, which penetrates walls better and has less competition with 2.4 (Zigbee). So while its closed, it usually more performant than Zigbee (in my experience...)
- philjohn 1y ago
  Yes - but it does feel over-engineered in some places (for good reason, having device profiles that everyone adheres to makes supporting a new device of a given class a doddle for smart home platforms) and it is definitely more finicky at present to pair devices than with Zigbee. If I had to wipe and re-setup my smart home with 100 Zigbee devices and 18 Matter over Thread devices (Tado smart thermostat and TRV's) the Zigbee devices would take me about half an hour in total to have back up and running in HomeAssistant, the Matter over Thread devices would take me around 2-3 hours as you have to pair them one-at-a-time.
  - CharlesW 1y ago
    > If I had to wipe and re-setup my smart home with 100 Zigbee devices… FWIW, this is purely an HA issue, not a Matter one. Once HA includes the Matter credential store in backups/restores, the experience will be the same. Out of curiosity, what is the reason you find yourself completely wiping and re-pairing all of your Z-Wave devices?

pmarreck 1y ago

I use some sort of cobbled together solution with Philips Vue lights, a couple of LIFX lights, halfway set up HomeKit, the Vue app, some Alexa integration, some sort of gateway that I believe connects Zigbee to my LAN... .. but all I can remember from growing up is the X-10 POWERHOUSE

elcapitan 1y ago

Apparently "smart home" means that it's now a knowledge worker job to operate a lightswitch.

deleted 1y ago

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tzs 1y ago

Warning: a bit of a rant incoming... I've found Matter totally confusing. Given a device that supports Matter (e.g., a smart plug) and a set of devices I want to control that from (e.g., an Amazon Echo and an iPad) it is not clear to me what else I need. Apparently I need a "controller", which is not necessarily the thing that I as a user would think of the controller--as a user I think of the controller as the device I issue command from. A Matter controller is apparently a hub for connecting the thing I'm using to issue commands to the IOT device I want to control. And maybe I need a "Thread border router"? As far as the controller goes, apparently at some point Apple added the ability for iPads to be Matter controllers, so you could use a Matter device with just an iPad (if the Matter device used WiFi...if it used Thread then you would need a separate Matter controller and I'd guess one of those Thread border routers). I was able to briefly use a Matter smart plug with my iPad without having a separate hub, but it stopped working not too long after. I deleted the plug from the iPad and did a factory reset on the plug and tried setting up again, but now when the iPad searches for the device during setup it doesn't even see it. Apple still has instructions on their site for setting up devices for direct use from iPad, but several sites on the net report that they actually dropped that support from iPad. So lets say I go get an actual Matter hub. Do I need a separate hubs for using my Matter devices from my Apple devices and using my Matter devices from my Amazon devices? How about if I need a Thread border router--will I need one for Apple and one for Amazon? What if I add Home Assistant later--am I going to need a third hub? All I'm really trying to do for now is use this one TP-Link Tapo smart plug that supports Matter from Apple Shortcuts without having to use the Tapo app. The Tapo app does integrate with Shortcuts but you have to be logged in to your TP-Link account on the app for it to work. Every so often you have to re-login, breaking your shortcuts until you do. What I'm currently considering is installing Home Assistant somewhere, probably in a VM on my Mac for now but latter on a dedicated RPi if the experiments in a VM show that it will work, and setting it up to be my Matter controller for the smart plug. Shortcuts (or Siri) won't be able to directly use Matter to control the plug with that setup, but there is a Home Assistant app for iOS/iPadOS that can do so and that supports Shortcuts. It will basically be like I'm doing now with the Tapo app but instead with the Home Assistant app and no need to be logged in to TP-Link (or to even have internet access). PS: I wouldn't need any of this if Apple would just get around to implementing for iPadOS the same 80% charge limit option that they have had on iOS for ages. I'm using the smart plug and Shortcuts as a kludge while waiting for that. I charge through the smart plug and have a Shortcut automation to turn off the smart plug when the iPad's battery level rises above 80%.

Gi-hun 1y ago

AlexandrB 1y ago

Matter has been very disappointing so far, with very unreliable connectivity and behavior (using Apple TV as a border gateway). I basically gave up on it and prefer to use non-Matter HomeKit hardware (usually WiFi) where I can. Don't know if Zigbee was better, but it can hardly be worse.

wetpaws 1y ago

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marsven_422 1y ago

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the_mitsuhiko 1y ago

I'm pretty sure this is misreporting, and these devices actually support Matter as well as Zigbee.

jauntywundrkind 1y ago

The lamp+speaker is interesting. Wish it had usb-c for power, and or wireless charging. A pity there's no home standards for audio streaming. Matter Cast is an abomination, unfortunately: from what I can tell it requires native apps for each device, and there's not really an app store system, and indeed seemingly many devices only can stream via the pre-installed software!! Really emphasizes the incredible power of Netflix's DIAL protocol, which tells a device to go to a URL & opens some command channels. Which is, if you squint, what Chromecast 's protocol was for a long long time (now I think there's also the ability to ship native apps to devices too?). Really glad to see Ikea on board here. This creates a lot of pressure for other devices makers to modernize & use the much improved Matter stack, with much better network performance & much more standardization for Apple Google & potentially other control fabrics to make viable home systems, something Z-wave and Zigbee weren't positioned to make great progress on.

aerostable_slug 1y ago

We could have had ZigBee Smart Energy Profile 2.0 running all of this, with the glory and righteousness of IP networking everywhere. Oh well...

maxglute 1y ago

First daim chocolate, now zigbee...

riknos314 1y ago

This could easily have as much to do with support costs as anything with the technical side of the protocols. A member of my family works in customer support for a company making devices using both zigbee and thread, and claims that support calls for debugging zigbee are often among the longest (and thus most expensive) calls they handle. Unsure what IKEA's tech support looks like, but I assume that most issues not solved by support turn into returns, which are also bad for the bottom line.

rkagerer 1y ago

Well IKEA, I'm not going to buy and "smart" products from you.

windex 1y ago

zigbee has been generally flaky for me, and I dont know if the problem are these tiny coin batteries or the actual sonoff hardware.