Firstly apolgies in advance as I imagine that this topic has been discussed before and I found a few “what is matter” / “how does matter work” topics but none of them answer my question (I realise that thread is the protocol, matter runs on top of that and is a standard for communication).
Currently I have a number of aquara zigbee devices connected to a collection of zigbee adabtors that are used by zigbeetomqtt to communicate with HA / node red.
I have just ordered some Eero Pro 6e routers for an unrelated reason but saw that Eero will (or does) support matter and has both thread and zigbee radios.
My hope is that:
I can connect all my zigbee (and future thread) devices to my Eero network
these devices will all be available as matter devices via the Eero matter support
I can then connect HA to Eero so that I can access updates and control my devices through HA (and node-red)
I can dump my sonoff / other zigbee adaptors and just use the one Eero network that covers my whole house
Alexa is not involved at all
Is this possible? Is my understanding of matter correct?
I think my confusion comes partly from the fact that HA is selling a matter / thread / zigbee adaptor so I am windering if HA needs to “own” the matter network but as matter is open and allows anything to communicate with anything it must be possible (in my mind) to have a matter network (owned by eero) that can be controlled by Google Home, Alexa, Home Assistant / node red.
Many thanks (hopefully there are some patient people on here who can answer)
Not now. Maybe sometime in the future. If Eero (Amazon) presents thier devices through a bridge. (which right now, Amazon doesn’t look like they intend to.and nobody is suprised. In fact nor does Google or SmartThings. They all are. Planning inbound connections from other people but not implementing bridges. Without that you will only see matter native products presented but none of the non-matter stuff. (more maybe here). While the sky connect has been announced for HA we also need to see how HA implentations of Matter support the Matter multu-admin features (allows multiple systems to connect to a single given device if presented and authorized)
Amazon is also only planning on releasing matter over wifi support on thier matter ready gear through the end of 22 and thread will follow next year.
So right now. Incredibly early. Not a lot of answers, instead a lot of questions. And certainly nowhere near where you want it to be… Yet.
Personally, I have no plans to buy anything matter until I have a clear path of connecting them directly to my HA install through an appropriate dongle like the sky connect. Until then the tech podcasts have plenty of device updates as to what to expect ‘coming later this year’
Thanks for the reply. So when Eero says they support matter it really means they support matter to consume matter devices for Alexa. It doesn’t mean that support connecting to matter devices and making them available to other eco systems…
That’s dissapointing.
Also the Sky connect will have the same problem that I currently have - having to have multiple zigbee / matter stations around the house… I really like the idea of Eero sorting that for me
I have an eero powered mesh wifi at home and HA identifies the eero routers as thread border routers. I don’t have any thread devices so can’t really test anything but it seems HA might be able to potentially eero’s thread network.
Thanks, this works for me! I can now select either the Apple or Eero thread networks as preferred.
However, all my devices have been set up on my Apple TV-powered Thread-network. Not sure if I can easily migrate devices across, and whether they would then still remain in Apple’s network. Also, I’m guessing the HomeKit (not Matter) over Thread devices can only run on Apple’s Thread network?
Would be great if both the Eero and Apple networks could be merged into one…
Hi - Is there an update to this - I am trying to connect some IKEA switches to HA via an Eero hub. the Hub is Thread Compatible and I followed the setup at the bottom but does not work - was hoping for some guidance
Thank you for this! I had recently purchased a Matter over Thread five button device made by Onvis. Huge headache to config which I’ll spare y’all from reading.
Ultimately, once integrated into HA I realized it still wasn’t connecting to my eero thread network, and was likely just using BT via HAs Homekit integration.
This post helped me figure out the process of configuring my eero6 mesh network into HA as a preferred network (super obscure steps, who would have thought that’s how to do it??), and I was ultimately able to press a “enable preferred thread credentials” entity button in the settings of my pre-integrated BT Homekit device to migrate into my eero network (via Homekit in HA). Enormously confusing and undocumented process, but it seems to be working now. Hope this helps someone else.
