I also purchased the Sky Connect, which should arrive soon, I hope. It says january 2nd. I noticed all my Hue devices have been updated to matter. I also notice that HA has a matter add on that i installed. Will the sky connect when i get it work with both zigbee and matter and if not what’s the time line on this. I know the sky connect said that it will support matter with a firmware update. Has that already been done since the matter add on is available?
I am pretty sure that ‘free’ and ‘echo’ will cost you data.
But, you are certainly free to decide how to handle that.
My main question is when i get my sky connect with it and get it set up will i be able to use matter. I have matter devices a matter echos and hue has been upgraded to matter as well via firmware. I see and set up a matter add on. Will the sky connect be able to set up a matter network? I know reading about the sky connect says it will support matter by firmware update. Has this already happened or is there an eta. I just found this matter integration which made me think maybe the sky connect has already been added to the sky connect. Also what do you mean by use more data?
SkyConnect and HA’s Thread are at the moment (and has been for many months) are considered Beta and not recommended for production HA. But there are many people using SkyConnect with OTBR AddOn (Thread Only). Many others (myself included) are also using SkyConnect with SiLabs Multiprotocol (Thread & Zigbee) AddOn, but it has a tendency to crash from time to time. So for now, if you want to try this, use the OTBR AddOn.
HA’s Matter however is considered for the most part, production worthy when used with Apple or Google based Thread TBRs. I’m not quite sure how good the Echo’s TBR is but a few months ago, it was thought to be less stable and thus far not on the recommended list. However this doesn’t mean Echo’s won’t work. Give it a try and see… it will likely improve anyway over time.
I got the 3rd generation Echo 8 and the Dot that has Matter support it was on sale and came with a matter color light bulb for free. Im curious how well this bulb is going to work. Yeah im sure it will improve ita cool that hue updated their firmware. Is it one or the other on the sky connect? I need to chose one or can i just use both apps matter and the zigbee one. What’s the advantage of the app your talking about. Im not familiar i need to do some research. But i have tons of hue bulbs and with the two echos should have a super strong matter network when it gets better all around. Currently are the hue zigbee and matter?
Here is hopefully a set of bullet points that might help out:
- Zigbee - This is a smart home wireless technology that can be integrated into HA using ZHA (can use SkyConnect or via SiLabs multiprotocol AddOn), or Zigbee2MQTT (can use SkyConnect directly or via SiLabs multiprotocol AddOn), or using the Philips Hue Bridge. Philips Hue devices are Zigbee based, and HA’s Philips’ Hue integration is used to talk to the Hue Bridge over Ethernet/IP using a Hue API for managing/controlling Hue devices.
- Thread - Is a wireless technology that by itself is not worth much as it is just a networking technology, Thread however is used in concert with Matter. Matter is what is needed to manage/control devices on the Thread network. The main component of interest in Thread is the Thread Border Router (TBR). It allows devices on a Thread wireless network to connect to HA over Ethernet (or WiFi) via IP. HA can provide Thread/TBR using either the SiLabs Multiprotocol AddOn or the OTBR AddOn, both requiring SkyConnect.
- Matter - Is a smarthome ecosystem that is used to manage/control Matter devices. Matter can use either a Thread network, and or WiFi for communicating with Matter devices and as such a Matter Device is either WiFi based or Thread based. As for the Philips Hue Bridge, (as I understand it), there is a software update that can turn the Hue Bridge into a Matter “Bridge”, whereby the Hue/Matter Bridge will still use Zigbee to Manage/Control its Zigbee devices (including your existing bulbs) just like it always has, but on the Ethernet side, it will “present” these devices as “Matter” devices to systems like HA’s Matter AddOn/Integration (instead of presenting them over an API). In this way, HA’s Matter will manage/control Hue devices. One thing to be aware of is that Matter technology does not yet have all the features that you get with Zigbee, so I would not yet use Matter to manage/control Hue devices.
Using Multiprotocol AddOn it could support both Thread and Zigbee, but I would recommend one or the other (instead of both)
Hopefully the explanation above answers this
Thanks for your detailed explanation. So your saying its not great to use the sky connect for both thread and zigbee? What can they just interfere with each other? Before I bought the sky connect I bought a sonoff zigbee 3.0 with the uab extender. I was just going to sell it but I would be better off using both devices? I put the sonoff on ebay but i could hook it up if its better to use two different devices. I only have one zwave device so i think im just going to sell the zwave fire detector. I actually found zigbee ones. I bought the Sonoff before i decided on the sky connect.
At the moment that’s correct (not great to use for both Zigbee and Thread). The SiLabs Multiprotocol AddOn runs fine for a while and after a day or two or a week or two it will fail because it can no longer talk with SkyConnect. Its unclear for now why this occurs, and it is being looked at. This is not happening with the OTBR AddOn. This all could of course change over the next several months. I would keep your Sonoff Zigbee for now until things settle out.
Hey
Skyconnect as well as similar dongles (like sonoff zb e) with the silicon lab chip can run both Zigbee and Thread with proper firmware, while this is not stable enough for now. You may counter many connectivity issue, and the performance is no guarantee.
Matter however, is an application layer thing, it can utilize Wi-Fi/Thread to control devices. So actually you can have matter and thread feature without such dongles. An external OTBR is enough like the one built in Echo.
hope these info can help you 