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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 sys

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.
  - snickerdoodle12 1y ago
    To be fair, step 4 isn't a real step, step 1 is just buying the "hub" or "border router" or whatever, and step 2 & 3 are the same for Zigbee and Matter, the button is just somewhere else. A typical consumer has bought a zigbee hub (like they need to buy a thread border router), then use their phone to press a button in the app and then they press a button on the device. Still dead simple and doesn't require flaky bluetooth from their phone, which in 2025 most androids still suffer from.

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.
- snickerdoodle12 1y ago
  To be fair, step 4 isn't a real step, step 1 is just buying the "hub" or "border router" or whatever, and step 2 & 3 are the same for Zigbee and Matter, the button is just somewhere else. A typical consumer has bought a zigbee hub (like they need to buy a thread border router), then use their phone to press a button in the app and then they press a button on the device. Still dead simple and doesn't require flaky bluetooth from their phone, which in 2025 most androids still suffer from.