Will these Matter-over-Thread products be any good or are you sticking with Zigbee and Z-Wave?
The Verge has two articled covering these:
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The support in Thread for multiple coordinators/gateways, multiple fabrics, and a standards body to keep manufactures honest suggested to me replacing Zigbee with Thread when it came out, and I wrote back in 2022…
I’d expected more Matter / Thread kit out there by now, but the manufacturing might of IKEA should mean good + cheap + available. Hopefully Thread also means less need for “quirks files” to clean up bad protocol implementation.
The scroll-wheel IKEA remotes look particularity interesting, especially if they don’t eat CR2032 and die randomly like the 5-button IKEA remotes did on launch!
I was surprised by the resurgence of Z-Wave with LR, so expect a target architecture of Thread + Z-Wave for a while.
Zigbee has been just about OK for me, but kit is cheap and the low-cost shows when changing batteries (both hardware and protocol issues).
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I think his shows promise but believe the Matter standard still in its infancy and needs a few more years to mature in order to overtake Zigbee and Z-Wave as a ”THE go-to” protocol for local-only control, especially with many current Matter devices requiring users to use the manufacturer’s propriatory apps and/or gateway to get access to all of devices functions or in some cases even for initial setup (shame on you Nuki!).
Still, nice to see more well known brand like IKEA and also Philips begin to come out with Matter-over-Thread devices as those have been few and far between on the market so far.
Will for sure keep an eye out as Matter-over-Thread products mature, (though personally I will stick will Zigbee and Z-Wave for at leaat a couple more years).
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I could not decipher the announcement. Are those devices Matter over Thread for sure? I see the Dirigera hub would be needed, but can we use both zigbee and Matter-over-Thread devices on the same hub, & at the same time?
I have like 20 zigbee devices that are working perfectly fine so no, not in like 5-10 years if they keep working.
And to be honest I still dont understand how matter and thread works. Is matter the protocol, like zigbee? Or is it thread? 🫨
Yes those devices themselves are native Matter-over-Thread devices to you can pair them to any Matter controller without IKEA’s Diriga hub, including Home Assistant’s Matter integration with a Thread Border Router. Read Ikea’s new smart home collection is entirely Matter-compatible | The Verge
Matter is the application layer protocol while Thread is the transport layer/medium for these. There are also other Matter device that uses Wi-Fi or Ethernet instead of Thread as the transport layer/medium.
You can kind of think of a Thread network mesh as kind of a low-power alternative to WiFi (with very low bandwidth), but instead of WiFi access-points radios you need Thread Border radios. So good for wireless IoT devices that run on batteries. Instead of
The higher-level parts of the Matter standard itself actually takes some inspirations from Zigbee (at least the device objects) and HomeKit. Instead of a Zigbee Gateway you need a Matter Controller.
Is there any diy solution for building a matter/thread OTBR? I see there are some commercial alternatives, but some are expensive and not sure which one to choose.
Recent SilLabs chipsets can support either Zigbee or Thread:
The original intention was to offer both at the same time, but the radio protocol chatter turns out to be too much.
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€ 25 if using the Ethernet daughterboard, cheaper if using WiFi
https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005005232242277.html
I have 2 of them, they work with HA
Or flash a Skyconnect/ZBT-1/Sonoff Dongle E with OTBR firmware
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I’m curious how Dirigera hub be able to handle both Thread and Zigbee at the same time… to support zigbee devices before this announcement, and these 21 thread ones.
- Did IKEA somehow figured out how to reliably handle both protocols, as SiLabs intended, at the same time?
- Did IKEA somehow get a different yet improved version of the chip from SiLabs… since the first Dirigera hub coming out? (not likely I know)
- Or is there going to be a different Dirigera hub with newer HW iteration, but still call Dirigera?
- Or does IKEA plan to somehow convert all the (legacy to IKEA) zigbee devices to talk thread? Something like OTA firmware update?
I know it’s probably too early to ask those, but I’m curious.
Supposedly any of the above is not easy/straightforward, for IKEA’s Engineering or for IKEA’s upstream solution provider.
You can today buy the official Home Assistant Connect ZBT-1 adapter (formerly SkyConnect) or if wait until the launch on the 19th of November then you can buy upcoming Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2 (which is the official successor to the ZBT-1/SkyConnect) as that have a Thread radio (alternativly you could otherwise buy any other moden Silicon Labs EFR32MGxx radio adapter and flash it with a compatible OpenThread RCP firmware) and use it with the official OpenThread Border Router add-on (which in turn also installs the OpenThread Border Router integration). See:
- OpenThread Border Router add-on/integration → Open Thread Border Router - Home Assistant
- Then that Thread integration can be used by the Matter integration → Matter - Home Assistant
- There is more information here → Thread - Home Assistant
Note that a prerequisite step before above is to first flash OpenThread firmware to the radio adapter. Quote:
Out of the box, Home Assistant Connect ZBT-1 and Yellow run Zigbee, not Thread. Currently, enabling Thread involves manual steps. The integration of the Home Assistant based Thread border router with Matter is work-in-progress.
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If you have a Home Assistant Yellow or Connect ZBT-1, you can use their Thread radio. Follow these steps to turn Home Assistant into a Thread border router.
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IKEA Dirigera might have two radios with one dedicated for Zigbee and the other dedicated for Thread, but more likely they have probably compromissed and instead enable both Zigbee and Thread protocols on a single radio to save money by using a Multi-PAN firmware to allow multi-protocol, which something that Home Assistant’s developers consider experimental and do not recommend nor officially support because proven not to be stable in the long run when add many devices. See more detailed explaination here → Are there Disadvantages using RCP Multi-PAN over EmberZNet NCP? · darkxst/silabs-firmware-builder · Discussion #41 · GitHub
Yeah I know all that, including the bits about Multi-PAN firmware not being stable, and that’s not without trying.
Hence the question - how IKEA plans to support both Thread and Zigbee, at the same time, in their Dirigera hub.
Note the Verge article names the direct-pair Zigbee protocol as TouchLink, which is a detail I’ve not seen before.
A battery remote technically might be able to speak Thread for one device, stop, reset, and use Zigbee for another (and appear sleeping to the other protocol), but keeping track of both protocols at the same time would need more computational power and hence battery.
Remember, the SilLabs chipset used in the ZWA-1 was thought to be able to dual-stack, but keeping track of both meshes proved too much - for a mains powered device.
Requiring a hub to go Thread -> Hub -> Zigbee rather defeats the point of TouchLink as it is really for those without hubs/coordinators/HomeAssistant - but when you have them, it is a menace.
Personally, TouchLink has only been a disaster - pairing an IKEA 5-button remote regularly chose a random Lidl bulb rather than the HA coordinator and required BOTH client devices to be factory reset.
Until we get the kit and test, we won’t know.
Well, if the IKEA Dirigera hub really only has a single radio and they are using Multi-PAN firmware for multiprotocol to enable both Zigbee and Thread on it then it could be that IKEA felt it be a low-enough risk as it might work good enough for their specific scenario and IKEA’s customer use cases which is to only use a limited product-range with only devices made by IKEA themselves.
First of all, remember that the IKEA Dirigera hub only supports IKEA’s own Zigbee devices, not third-party Zigbee devices, so it is only compablible with known first-party devices which IKEA themselves have full firmware control over. There is so far also a few Matter-over-Thread devices so that too is limited risk. Then I suspect that most IKEA Dirigera users will almost never connect loads of devices, and even if they do they are probably all newer devices from IKEA. I also bet that the average IKEA Dirigera user do not have high demands. You should also be aware that Silicon Labs Multi-PAN firmware for multiprotocol has grown more stable over the years, and if the use case is only using products from a single brand then the risk of it getting unsable is very low.
I not think it is fair to compare stability in the IKEA Dirigera hub use cases compared to that of using Multi-PAN firmware for multiprotocol on a radio adapter Home Assistant’s ZHA integration or Zigbee2MQTT which supports thousands on third-party devices that any one could contain rouge firmware that make the Zigbee network mesh unstable.
If you are a gamer then I think you are compare it to the development games for a Xbox/PlayStation/Switch game-console of games that is a known quantity in terms of hardware and software if you compare devwloping games for a gaming-PC which could have different processor and graphics hardware or even a different version of Windows. That is why you see a lot more reports from users complaining that games usually have less problem symtoms on game-consoles compared to the same game on a Windows gaming-PC.
You can also imagine the amount of developers that IKEA have working on both their limited scope of the IKEA Dirigera with just devices from IKEA. Then compare that to the few developers working on Home Assistant’s ZHA integration and Zigbee2MQTT which also have a much larger scope of securing stability for a userbase that use a massive amount of different devices. In which use case scenario are you more likley to take a risk on using Multi-PAN firmware for multiprotocol on a radio adapter verses just saying that the users will simply need to buy two radios to use dedicated for different IoT protocol.
Again, these are just educated guesses and I do not even know for sure that the IKEA Dirigera hub does not actually have dedicated radios for Zigee and Thread.
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Yeah I just looked that video and it clearly shows that the IKEA Dirigera hub has three radio modules; one for Wi-Fi and the other two are both identical Silicon Labs EFR32MG21 series modules which in that configuration will obviously be used to have them as dedicated Zigbee Coordinator and Thread Border Router radios.
So guess that means IKEA choose not to take a risk on Silabs Multi-PAN multi-protocol technology either. That was the safe way as even if you save some money in hardware going with Multi-PAN multiprotocol on a single radio then would intead both need to spend more time on development and maintaining it plus risk having more dissatisfied customer if thier network get unstable or slow response if they add of devices.
Note that each EFR32MG21 MCU SoC does not cost much more than $4 US-dollar (or €4 Euro) even if you do not buy them in bulk, (and I can only imagine the price IKEA pays in their bulk orders), so it not that using dedicated radios in a smart home hub will make them that more expensive in pure bill of material cost, especially when you consider that using Multi-PAN multi-protocol adds a lot of complexity to the software stack which also cost money in development time for developers. Reference-> Access to this page has been denied.
By the way, I would alao like to give IKEA top-marks for inplementing proper EMF-shielding on all their components as well as at least trying to locate all radios as far away from each other as possible on that IKEA Dirigera hub, it really looks a great PCB design for a low-budget smart home hub. As long as their users do not put it too close to EMF/EMI/RMI sources (like other electronics or WiFi devices) then they will probably not have issues with interference.
PS: For both Zigbee and Thread be sure to read and try to follow all the best-practice tips here ->,Zigbee network optimization: a how-to guide for avoiding radio frequency interference + adding Zigbee Router devices (repeaters/extenders) to get a stable Zigbee network mesh with best possible range and coverage by fully utilizing Zigbee mesh networking
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Interesting indeed. So Dirigera hub was announced back in 2022, and they have had 2 radios all this time…? Maybe this Zigbee + Thread approach was IKEA’s plan all along.
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Although i like new stuff, matter is not mature enough for me to adopt.