Hi,
ATM, I’ve got 200+ zigbee devices, with chatty ones in their own network just to keep 190 others fairly responsive.
With newest burst of thread devices (likes of IKEA etc) I was considering jumping the ship - hence my question:
Does anybody run networks which are 200+ in size ? Are those stable ? How many border routers are they running, or is more than one just unnecessary FAF. Are there any precautions about routers like sticking them on designated network segment (like separate vlan) ? How those larger networks handling very chatty devices - like 30 odd power measuring devices that report every 5 seconds ?
ps. I was planning using SLZB devices eith EFR chip as thread routers, but I don’t know what are rules (dos/donts) of mixing types of routers ?
ps. 2 - question is motivated also with the fact that I’ve seen some posts from year or two past where people were hailing as a massive success of having 60 devices in the network … something in Z2M we take for granted.
ps. 3 - Z2M repo is a good lightning rod type of a place where people do complain about their devices so it’s a good source of information of what to avoid - is there anything similar for thread devices … beside of here ?
ps. 4. - I know that I will get hate for that, but I’m using plenty of philips HUE devices, and I think I’m spoiled with their constant support - even 5 years after gettign the product, they still release firmware upgrades with bug fixes and protocol upgrades - what’s the situation in thread landscape ?
I do not know about what happens to a network with so many devices, but I do know that Matter is an IPv6 protocol and VLANs require a lot of knowledge about TCP/IP routing and discovery protocols to set up, unless HA, Matter server, OTBR and commissioning device is in the same VLAN.
in regards of vlan, I’ve got a capacity to tag stuff in my network so it will be very much separated from the rest of the network. To add - I’m enough paranoid that I don’t route ipv6 on my gateway, since I don’t fancy ISP knowing what’s inside of my network.
TCP/IP routing will not be enough.
You need to understand the protocols, both IPv4 and IPv6, and all the protocols running on top of them.
Some of them is necessary, but they are not routable with normal TCP/IP routing, like mDNS.
Matter was designed with ipv6 mandatory but NOT vlans. It expects a 100% flat network. So all the vlans while may keep ‘the man’ out will make it insanely hard from a matter perspective… You’ll need tk know what needs to be reflected tk what network and… Yeah. As fun as it sounds. The alternative is Swiss cheese rules.
The latest thread version supposedly requires internet access for end devices
Devices with full local control and ownership might be something we soon only can buy used and might be something for museums sooner or later
Finally subscriptions for our matter thread devices!
Same same for our ESPHome devices from various vendors. Even the (over 10 year old) esp82xx based ones get plenty of attention and improvements in 2026 thanks to the foundation!
No, it does not.
The TBR is required to offer NAT64 though and some devices might offer extra functionality by cloud services. There is a strict set of mandatory sensors and controls that needs to be made available off grid for each device type.
The extra functionality will be the same as we do with the sensors values in HA, like calculating Power over time from the Power value of a metering plug and so on.
The same functionality can already be found on some Zigbee devices with their vendors own hub.
Which grants internet access to all connected devices?
Finally subscriptions? Soon we might see matter/thread devices doing some futurehome moves
Smart home device maker Futurehome is forcing its customers’ hands by suddenly requiring a subscription for basic functionality of its products.
You find super basic things like the power-on-state or the network state of a device (online/offline) not to be part of mandatory sensors/controls and therfor often not exposed locally. Fun thing is they are actually 100% local/on device but vendors often pack such basic (“extra”) functions into their walled gardens app/cloud and can even force their vendor hub! What stupidity to “need” a vendor hub just to change the power-on-state on “your” device (obviously the configuration is also saved directly on the device!)
I always suggest to do the integration of power directly on the device. It guarantees not only the most accuracy but also mitigates the problems of underreporting when integrating in HA (restarting HA for an update for example!). Depending on the update intervals integrating on HA can be quite inaccurate and more of a guesstimate
If you took the time to read the standard then you would know that the futurehome case is not applicable to Matter.
It is like a weather station.
Rain, wind and temperature are all local and will always be there.
The weather forecast is from external sources and will require the cloud access.
The technical foundation seems to be present. What words exactly do think will stop manufactures going evil?
Same same. Promising full local control forever free without cloud dependecy. Then they remotely loaded an firmware update on their ("your”) device disabling all (local included) functions and ask for ransom (subscription fees) to make it work like before.
The company recently issued a firmware “upgrade” (downgrade) that locks the devices unless the subscription is paid.
Now let’s say I have a matter certified device from the imaginary company futurewally, what stops them pushing an update disabling functions (maybe even disable matter completely) and ask for ransom to restore functions?
Funny example Thomas, one of my first esp projects about ten years ago was a weather station which computet the weather forecast locally - strictly without cloud For short term predictions it actually was more precise then any cloud provided forecast
It would not be a certified firmware in Matter then and the Matter server will reject it or ask the user if the trust the firmware, and it will also means it can not be distributed over the CSA DCL service.
See above.
I have no idea where you live, but here it would not be possible.
You look out the window and it is full sunshine.
You put your shoes on and open the door to rain.
Then you find your umbrella, but when you open the door again it is snowing.
How does this help at all if a manufacture decides to give a … (like futurehome with their “promise” full free local control forever)?
And is it actually enough to remove the matter functions of a device to loose certification (Shelly has devices doing exactly this within the official firmware)
And what exactly are the difference between words and certification? What will be the punishment for manufactures not obeying the rules? Let me guess… same as for Heltun (“works with HA”)? They can continue carrying the certification/badge for another year two years without any consequences
How could a matter server even interfere/reject a firmware update of a device if it is not involved in the process. A Sonoff, Shelly, YouNameIt enabled matter wifi device just connects to the vendor cloud and downloads it’s new firmware. It’s not that a matter exclusive firmware is running on these devices, rather the opposite (a proprietary vendor firmware with additional matter capabilities). Obviously a matter server is just a bystander and can’t do anything about a device be upgraded thru vendor channels.
Should have observed local barometric pressure changes before leaving and you probably would have known - science even works in denmark
Yeah … ffff, I was afraid that this might be a possibility with this new and shinny protocol … otherwise what would be the motivation for apple (of all people) to support it so nicelly
with vlan tags I can place SLZB dongle and virtual interface connected to hass in their own walled of virtual LAN - nobody else, even on same switch would see those.
I assumed that TBR would not punch the nat64 holes to the WAN, but it seem that it does as part of 1.4
which are the same thing as making members of local thread network accessible from the internet - NAT doesn’t mean MASQUARADE.
I have a feeling that this whole conversation will desend into “believe corporations” and “let’s keep local control”
I would rather focus on what’s required, as those things in the protocol spec do give a glimpse of what’s to come
(anybody remembers BMW subscription based heated seats ? that was fun revelation that everybody stated would never happen in “connected car”)
ANYWAY,
anybody is running large networks ? you know like in original question ?
The manufacturer can Publish a certified firmware that removed basic Matter functions.
It is not up to the manufacturer to decide that, but CSA.
Yes, the standard list functions for each device as mandatory local functions.
Words are something all can use.
Certification can only be done by CSA.
A device is certified on first entering the CSA DCL.
New firmwares on the CSA DCL needs to be certified too and therefore will a manufacturer not be able to Publish a firmware without the required mandatory functions.
The manufacturer can stop updating a device, but the basic mandatory functions will keep working.
I have not looked into Matter over WiFi, but Matter over Thread goes through the Matter server to get the CSA DCL.
Yes, but we have many factors playing in so in some periods of the year those factors fluctuate a lot in just minutes.
Even the proffesionally made weather forecasts have issues here.
At the moment a snowstorm is forecasted in some hours, but where ut will hit is still uncertain.
Probably best to stop. Orange-assistant is on a crusade and refuse to see it from other points of views.
Regarding your extra questions, then mixing routers is a getting better, but there can still be issues. If you can find what foundation the router is based on then it can help. OpenThread is used by a lot of the smaller ones and they generally work well together.
Figuring out what works and what don’t is still a mess. Here is a good place, but Reddit also have some discussions about it.
The problem is that a site that collects and organize such information for Thread do not really exist yet.
Such site can also be a bit difficult to organize too, because Thread is a technology in itself, so you can have Thread devices that are just Thread devices, but they can also be HomeKit and/or Matter.
One vendor that stands out in the Matter over Thread environment is Eve.
They go all in on Matter over Thread and they update a lot.
Going from reverse - yes I’ve noticed this about eve, but ikea super aggressive pricing and decent approach to not using dumb coin cells and allowing rechargeable is nothing to scuff at.
I was again affraid that no central point for thread discussions will be the case. ATM it seems that homekit thread devices are on their own planet in their own universe as well.
About mixing routers - here I don’t intend to mix different brands of routers (or maybe if it’s possible), but I wanted to know whenever there is a way to have a setup with few border routers. It seems that if you go fo apple they have a polished design where few apple tv and home pods will team together … other gateways on the market seem to never mention working as a team even with their twin device. This is something that I would GREATLY appreciate, as from my experience with zigbee - the more hops the jankier the endpoint behaves, so having several egrass points from thread network gives not only a failover but also flattens the topology a bit.
Now, I’ve been searching further since I started this thread (yup, bad pun intended) and I’ve came accross SMHUB - which apparently can run a stand alone OTBR. For me it’s a great sollution since I don’t need to plug anything by USB to HASS, and I can have just an integration in HASS talk to it. Now how to setup TWO of those ?
It seems that it’s pretty much a wild west for thread in HASS at the moment, and only most basic setups are supported.
My original question still remains, does anybody run 200+ enpoint networks, as shifting away from Z2M might be halted if it’s not really a thing.
Edit: by SMHUB I mean SMHUB NANO MG24 - a very simple verion jsut o run OTBR
Very true time will tell. But I thought that ikea was already entrenched in zigbee sphere for some time - didn’t they provided fixes for stuff that was broken ?
For short term predictions it actually was more precise then any cloud provided forecast 
