At present I have zigbee Hue garden lights and that’s all I have that’s wireless. I will start adding wireless blinds (smartwings) and some contact and motion sensors. Shall I skip straight to Matter only in my expansion for future compatibility or is it still immature in the HA environment?
I used to have Zigbee wall switches throughout and that made for a pretty stable Zigbee network so I had dozens of sensors but I’m starting again in a new house…
I assume here that you mean Matter over Thread.
Matter is the future, but the question is it also the present.
Matter is still evolving and some types of devices do not exist in Matter yet.
There are only a few products to choose from in each category and sometimes there is only one or even none yet.
Matter products are more expensive compared to Zigbee, due to the certification.
Matter in HA is still somewhat problematic in anything but a simple setup. No multiple VLANs or multiple NICs in HA.
Understanding IPv6 is vital to set up your network correct if it is enabled on your router. Your IPv4 knowledge is pretty useless in this regard.
I did mean over thread, yes.
I think that if I go with the Aqara motion and contact sensors that are Matter, the SmartWings blinds (also matter/Thread), I won’t have anything else that that will need to be Zigbee other than my outdoor hue lights.
My indoor lights are DALI/MQTT.
So would you recommend going this path or sticking with Zigbee versions of the above sensors and blinds? I’m ok ensuring IPv6 is enabled.
I have personally gone with Matter over Thread instead of Zigbee, but the selection of devices is a challenge at times.
If you can live with the selection today and are okay with waiting out if a use case comes up that is not have devices available then it will be an option.
I have a Hue and a Homematic IP also that will eventually get shifted in some far future, but other holes in tried covered with ESPHome devices because it is WiFi based.
It is not optimal but it works this way.
I have invested a lot in Onvis and Eve Energy plugs to get the Matter network working reliable.
I will have approximately 5-10 Homepods, will that mean I won’t need too many Eve Energy plugs to keep the network reliable? I get that it’s about where they are placed and internal walls, etc.
Hard to say.
You will have to see when you set it up.
The more the better though.
I’ve read the whole thread so far and given all your replies I think you’re “ripe” for Matter 
Zigbee won’t be going anywhere any time soon so I don’t understand your doubt. If you want to have bleeding edge technology sure, go with matter or matter over thread but I personally think it will take a lot of time before this thing became mainstream.
In meanwhile price of zigbee devices will go down and more devices will be available. And this is how I see it.
But support for Zigbee may decline as more manufacturers and programmers switch their attention to Matter. So you could find defects and improvements don’t get addressed as quickly.
It might but we can only speculate about it. I sincerely doubt that something like that will happen because you have a lot of people using zigbee devices and we are probably talking around few millions of devices around the globe. It is too much devices and too many people to be left without any support.
Most of my zigbee devices are still running factory firmware for years and I don’t see any problems with it or with devices.
I’ve been continuing to read up on thread/matter devices and I’m seeing unreliability with the smart plugs and I’d be using those as repeaters over a large space.
I’m going to stick with Zigbee for now, especially given that I already have 50 outdoor hue devices that will help give me a robust network.