Confused with Thread/Matter

Configuration Matter/Thread
1

I am struggling with thread/matter and looking for some guidance, I’ll try to detail the situation below:
I have iOS devices and an apple home mini, they’ve been in play for a couple of years.
Home Assistant started off on a Pi, then moved to a Pi + SSD, then moved to Proxmox
I have a sizable (50+ devices) zigbee network connected to a Sonoff Dongle-P
I have wanted to play with Matter/Thread devices for a while, and bought an Ikea Alpstuga Air Quality sensor to dip my feet.
I also then bought a Sonoff Dongle Max, I have updated it and put it into Thread RCP mode
I have installed Open Thread Router as an Add-On and also Matter and Thread Integrations.
No matter what I do I am unable to get the device to add the the Thread network on HA from the companion app.
I get various errors, the latest being that there is no Thread Router in the network.
I have configured Open Thread Router Add-On to use the Dongle-M passed through from HA by PID/VID and set the Baud Rate to be 11xxx and also turned off flow control…
Chat GPT helpfully told me that I needed to use the Dongle-M as it would negate the Home Mini and keep everything in HA (which is preferable) But upon festooning it with the error I was seeing it then told me that the issue is that there are 2 Thread networks, Apples, and then HA’s and the iPhone doesn’t “acknowledge” HA’s network

I have multiple VLANs and the Home Mini is on a different one to HA, not that I think that would matter in this instance.

I was able to add the Aplstuga to Apple Home but it didn’t see the temperature reading. I then Factory reset it and was still unable to add to HA

Thanks in advance, btw I work in IT support so have a general understanding, I have also enabled ip6 on both HA, Proxmox and the router

2

That is most likely your problem. HA and Matter/Thread really need to be on the same VLAN. Matter/Thread rely heavily on mDNS advertisements and these are limited to link-local scope (i.e. doesn’t cross VLAN boundaries).

1 Like
3

So HA and most things are on an iOT network, whereas the Home mini is on the home network, for some reason. I was kinda hoping that the TBR in HA on the IOT would be on a different VLAN and would work, but it appears not to.

4

You can instead use the HA OTBR. You will first need to clear out the existing Apple Thread credentials from the phone, then send the HA credentials from HA to the phone.
You are welcome to take a look at my other community topic writeup that may help.

5

Awesome, thanks I’ll take a look, I figured Chat GPT was wrong and was hoping that someone sensible would be able to point me in the right direction, I’ll let you know how I get on

6

I have resolved this eventually, If anyone else has the same issue: 1. Open the Companion App, then debugging, thread, then I deleted all of the thread networks there.
2. Rebooted HA
3. Setup a new thread network
4. Rebooted HA again
5. Then I was able to add the matter sensor with no issue at all.

The other thing that I did, was to ensure the mobile was on the same network as the HA instance. (but I did do that yesterday as well)