Hi- Does anyone know if Amazon supports (or plans to support) Thread Border Router on Echo gen5? Seems odd that they would have TBR on gen4, but then drop it on gen5 ?
I’ve been using a lot of Alexa Echo devices, and looking to start doing Thread-Matter things. But no TBR on gen5?
The only Thread network that shows up in HA is from my Apple TV. But I’ve got Echo 4 and Echo 5 devices. I would like to have Thread in an outbuilding, which is not radio visible from main building, but connected by Ethernet. I’m planning on two different Thread networks. Any idea if I can actually do TBR thru Echo?
I see an Amazon Echo Dot 5th gen, which is a lower-level model than the [regular] Echo 4 so presumably has fewer features, and I see a Echo Show 5 which is actually 3rd gen but with a 5.5" screen, but I don’t see any evidence of an Echo 5 being released yet, unless there was a recent announcement that I missed.
The Echo 4 Thread Border Router should work with Matter-over-Thread devices commissioned using the Alexa app. Once the device is on the Alexa Matter fabric, you can “share” it to the HA Matter fabric for control in HA, and remove it from Alexa if you wish. You do not need to do anything with Thread in HA for this, you only need the Matter add-on and integration (and IPv6 network connectivity to the Echo).
You can have as many Thread networks as you want, but each one needs a Border Router to get packets to your LAN. If the TBRs are from the same vendor and share the same LAN, they will likely form a single mesh with the same credentials, so you can move a device from one mesh coverage area to the other; if they are from different vendors or on different LANs they currently cannot share credentials so you have to re-commission if moving areas.
You cannot use the HA companion app to commission new Matter devices to an Echo Thread network unless you can figure out how to extract the network credentials ('dataset") — some apps such as Eve and Nanoleaf used to show you this information, but I’m not certain they still do, and they require you to purchase and deploy one of their products first.
@peterxian Thanks. Thread still seems to require some non-obvious knowledge, so that’s very helpful. Hmm, was it just Matter that promised interoperability, and not Thread?
And yes you’re quite right about Echo gen5; I don’t think a full “Echo gen5” has ever been released. I only had full “Echo” device at gen1, and have been using “Echo Dot” devices from each generation since.
Basically, yes. Thread was actually developed by Nest 13 years ago, and after being acquired by Google formed the Thread Group. It basically takes the radio layer of Zigbee and marries it with the IP-friendliness of WiFi, making it an ideal choice when Matter (formerly CHIP) needed networking for low-power comms. Unfortunately it lacks any standardized method of credential-sharing, a shortcoming only recently addressed with the new 1.4 specification, which hopefully will trickle out to TBRs in the next few years and make things simpler.
Matter (as a specification) only debuted two years ago with the promise of being an open standard to help inter-operate competing ecosystems like HomeKit, Alexa, Google Home, and SmartThings. They have been adding to the spec every six months since then, as promised, but it still lacks many of the features of the ecosystems it was intended to replace.