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Zigbee vs. Matter over Thread:Understanding IoT Protocol Performance in Practice
- vdfs 2mo agoThese protocols add so much complications it makes wifi/tcp/ip a blaze They fix some problems but add more, you endup just like that xckd about protocols
- Forge36 2mo agoHaving switched to zigbee devices recently I regret trying to start with WiFi. While I'm not sure how it looks under the hood, adding devices with home assistant was miles easier.
- baby_souffle 2mo agoI've helped lots of people with home automation Network build outs l; the biggest factor is the RF environment. If you're fortunate enough to not be battery constrained at most endpoints and can put a high quality Wi-Fi access point in an optimal location than Wi-Fi is incredibly reliable. The tooling for inspecting all layers of a Wi-Fi network is infinitely more accessible and mature and that certainly helps; I can't go to My local big box store and get a USB thread dongle for 20 bucks that will just work on a Lennox computer and integrate nicely with Wireshark out of the box...
- Dan_- 2mo agoNo, you have to order it from Mouser for $16 instead. Fixed link: https://www.mouser.com/en/ProductDetail/Nordic-Semiconductor/nRF52840-Dongle?qs=gTYE2QTfZfTbdrOaMHWEZg%3D%3D&srsltid=AfmBOooWtRDBeRpLpzfjfjdVXbsdiuKyY1NbWvdi31V-r4a0ZR_T2mr7 https://www.mouser.com/en/ProductDetail/Nordic-Semiconductor... And there’s a little configuration: https://wiki.makerdiary.com/nrf52840-mdk-usb-dongle/guides/nrf802154-sniffer/configuring/#configuring-wireshark-for-thread https://wiki.makerdiary.com/nrf52840-mdk-usb-dongle/guides/n...
- hiitsmyaccount 2mo agoDead product link
- Dan_- 2mo agoSorry I thought I was removing tracking bits from the URL. It’s fixed now.
- hiitsmyaccount 2mo agoI have a Unifi home network with two Wifi 7 access points and gigabit ethernet. For home automation, I went with ZWave and do not regret it at all. It's been rock solid and I've never felt the need to get a dongle to debug the traffic. I don't want to be working through all of the WiFi baggage with my home automation devices. I recently introduced some Zigbee bulbs (hue and cheapos from Amazon) and they've been mostly "fine", albeit with lower range.
- baby_souffle 2mo ago> For home automation, I went with ZWave and do not regret it at all. It's been rock solid and I've never felt the need to get a dongle to debug the traffic. That's because zwave requires everything go through certification process. You pay more for this, but things generally just work. It's an entirely different situation in zigbee land though. I stick with ESPHome and MQTT because I can inspect and modify the behaviors of everything with free and open tools.
- Forge36 2mo agoWi-Fi was never unreliable. The devices that used WiFi were much worse to work with and setup.
- Gigachad 2mo agoThread is fairly similar to Zigbee, just standardized and doesn't require brand specific hubs. You can actually control thread devices direct from an iphone with no hub at all. Wifi for anything but cameras is a mistake, it only exists for maximum compatibility since everyone has wifi already.
- esseph 2mo agoWifi for cameras is arguably also a mistake
- nomel 2mo agoCameras that require internet to connect to are a mistake, but cameras that use Wifi for local link are fine (wifi is perfect for this). And, having some way to connect remotely is a requirement, for most everyone.
- deadmutex 2mo agoSome specifics would be a great addition to this comment.
- amarcheschi 2mo agoI studied zigbee protocol for an exam and while everything is there for a reason, it truly feels diabolical
- torginus 2mo agoA bit of clarification: Thread is a layer 2 protocol, for the user, it looks like standard IPv6. Matter is application level, and just expect standard TCP/IP underneath. There's nothing binding Matter to Thread, and in fact a lot of Matter devices use Wifi
- archagon 2mo agoI wish we had multimodal Matter devices that could go over Thread or Wi-Fi (or even wired networking) depending on conditions.
- preisschild 2mo agoThats exactly what Matter over Thread solves. It just uses standard ipv6, udp, tcp. WiFi is not designed for lots of low energy devices that can be repeaters.
- jauntywundrkind 2mo agoA lot of graphs where OpenThread & zigbee dance around each other, are within 2x of each other. Two huge notables to me: message throughput for openthreads scales up, zigbee seems to hit a wall early. Not sure when that matters but very clear. The last table was a fright through: it takes half a minute for OpenThreads to recover after a node drops where-as Zigbee a quarter second! Wow.
- richwater 2mo agoIs there a situation in which your smarthome taking 30s to recover from a node failure is impacting your life? Seems like a distinction without a difference
- 4chandaily 2mo agoStanding outside with an armfull of groceries, and a door is now our of range of your hub temporarily due to the failed node. 30s can seem like quite a while standing in the rain.
- AlotOfReading 2mo agoNot exactly a strong argument if you need like 5 qualifications to demonstrate the issue. If the right node fails, if it happens right as you walk up, if it's raining, if your porch is uncovered, if your door doesn't have an immediate fallback... I'm sure someone will be affected because of the law of large numbers, but it seems like an unlikely scenario to base a purchasing decision on.
- codeflo 2mo agoA light switch not working for 30 seconds, or a door not opening for 30 seconds, even if only sporadically, is a significant loss of life quality, no qualifiers needed.
- NekkoDroid 2mo ago
- SEJeff 2mo agoI’m a bit surprised they didn’t add zwave into this comparison.
- asveikau 2mo agoDoesn't zwave use a different frequency, and zigbee and thread are both 2.4ghz? Perhaps that makes it a more fair comparison?
- unsnap_biceps 2mo agosome zigbee controllers even support being converted to thread via a firmware update
- tehlike 2mo agosmlights do that! they are great.
- mukundzzha 2mo agohey buddy! are you a coder?
- SEJeff 2mo agoYes, zwave is in the much less congested 900mhz range. It is a fair bit more reliable as it doesn’t compete with: - WiFi - Bluetooth - microwave ovens Additionally, it’s a bit more strict with certification so you can easily use multiple vendors for zwave whereas with zigbee it’s often a terrible experience since vendors implement things differently in ways that are not as interoperable. In fact, for a device to be certified by the zwave alliance, it must pass strict conformance testing to ensure backwards compatibility and interoperability.
- petre 2mo agoOn Europe the 860MHz band is subject to more restrictive transmission duty cycles, LBT or FHSS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-range_device#SRD860 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-range_device#SRD860 In the US you also have the FCC reshaping the 900 MHz for industrial broadband and NextNav. So there will be more competition. https://www.nemko.com/blog/fcc-reshapes-the-900-mhz-band-for-industrial-broadband-1 https://www.nemko.com/blog/fcc-reshapes-the-900-mhz-band-for... https://www.landisgyr.com/br/pt/home/knowledge/blog/Navigating-the-900-MHz-FCC-Proceeding---5-Key-Points-to-Know https://www.landisgyr.com/br/pt/home/knowledge/blog/Navigati...
- cpressland 2mo agoI’m in the process of migrating from Zigbee (Z2M) to Matter over Thread (Apple HomePods + Matter Server). My Zigbee network was a mishmash of different vendors all of which had their own failure rates and quirks, Aqara having by far the highest failure rate and complexity. My new Ikea (Thread) based setup has had absolutely zero issues so far and fingers crossed it doesn’t start suffering as I scale it out. That said, it is noticeably slower than Zigbee, but we’re talking 50ms > 250ms. Which is more than acceptable.
- tetris11 2mo agoWhat's to stop Ikea from pushing an OTA and crippling your whole setup 2 years from now?
- HerAnt 2mo agoYou don't need to update your devices, and they don't need to be connected to any cloud. That's the whole point of these local communication protocols, after all.
- AnonymousPlanet 2mo agoSorry to pop your bubble, but the moment you add any IP connectivity it will be eventually used to mandate internet access. The devices you have now might not yet demand it, but you will have to replace them at some point or extend your setup in the future. We've seen this play out so many times now, it's baffling people still think this time will be different. There's a saying: If you set up a trough, the pigs will come.
- close04 2mo agoFor IPv6 networks you're in luck. The hubs are not proxies so the IPv6 enabled IoT device in an IPv6 network can still be blocked at firewall level from accessing the internet. Less that the separation Zigbee provides but better than nothing. For IPv4 networks you're out of luck. The internal mesh traffic is still IPv6 to the hub and anything crossing into the IPv4 network is done through the hub's IP. No more blocking available unless it's a feature of the hub. I'm not aware of any hub having this kind of FW capability.
- XiS 2mo ago`establishing it as a more robust foundation for larger and more heterogeneous deployments.` Based on.... 6 devices? Quite honestly I would have been interested in measurements with more than only 6 devices. Maybe upto 50 or so,even better if they'd mixed different hardware nodes for a more realistic scenario
- 8-prime 2mo agoAbsolutely. My setup which is about 1 month old already has 14 devices and I'm just getting started. Only having 6 devices really feels comically small for a study investigating the performance of communication protocols where device count can really make a differnce, as observed by even then changes from 1 to 6 devices.
- 8fingerlouie 2mo agoI have 47 thread/matter devices, alongside some 10-15 matter over wifi devices, so not quite 50, but "close enough". It's not as fast as Zigbee, not in day to day usage, and not in terms of reconnecting, which often takes 30 seconds (ie. after a power outage) where my Zigbee devices just seem to reconnect instantly. On day to day usage there's a slight delay when turning something on, but it's maybe 100ms or less. I initially had quite a few problems, but after "standardizing" on a single thread network (I had 3 before for some reason), as well as adding some wired thread border routers, things have become much more stable. My zigbee to thread is still a "work in progress", replacing devices as they fail (ie. lightbulbs), and I'm also still adding new Zigbee devices like the Aqara T1 Valve controller, but I prefer thread over zigbee today. One thing I will note, people tend to underestimate the range of thread (and zigbee for that matter). Each mains powered device will function as a repeater just like zigbee, and I initially thought I might need a couple of smart plugs as repeaters, but despite having a somewhat large house (by european standards) as well as double brick walls dividing it, my thread devices have no problems "seeing" a thread border router in the opposite end of the house.
- XiS 2mo agoThank you for giving some insight on your experiences I practice with that amount of devices. I have a zigbew network running with around 55 devices current. Ever since matter over thread I'm wondering whether I should start making the switch. Tell me, what made you start migrating to Matter? General availability of hardware, latency, stability, something else?
- BrandoElFollito 2mo agoI have tons of devices and I wish everything was Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi has its problems but at least it is easily measurable, debugable, ... Zigbee is a voodoo protocol: you initiate the pairing and hope for the best. And then you hope for the best to have it stay on.
- timvdalen 2mo agoI'm running both now, and while my Matter network seems to be solid, I can't get over the fact that it's so much harder to set up devices than on Zigbee. Why does Google need to get involved for me to set up a local IKEA device with my local border router?
- moogly 2mo agoAs someone with hundreds of Zigbee devices w/ zigbee2mqtt in a network (actually 2; one in my standalone garage, and one in the house), I'm hoping Thread/Matter will not take over because _for me_ it does not have a single improvement over Zigbee 3.0 and I have had 0 inclination to adopt any Matter devices so far. Probably why Zigbee 4.0 is a thing.