I noticed Ikea is ending sales for many Trådfri products. I use zigbee in home assistant and wonder what i can use once the lights break, for example E27 lights. Using conbee zigbee is my option. Hoping i can use the current setup longer. Are people upgrading?
This Thread may give you an idea… 
Basically, Thread is similar mesh to Zigbee but with a higher level of security, and guaranteed manufacturer compatibility testing. It’s not perfect, but then again, neither is Zigbee.
Personally, unless you are renting, I’d go for wired switch modules over controllable bulbs to avoid the light switch issue (e.g. a recent Shelly that can use almost any protocol or something like a Sonoff Mini4RM).
I have two ZBT-1, one configured with Zigbee and one with Thread. So it makes no big difference for me to either use the Trådfri stuff (Zigbee) or the new Ikea devices using Thread (for now I only purchased the Bikresa scroll wheel remote).
I think that’s exactly what makes HA so great, you can mix whatever devices are on the market. So I will stick with Ikea devices for the future as well, but no need to replace the existing stuff.
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Same, in one room we have one Thread IKEA KAJPLATS light controlled by a Zigbee IKEA SOMRIG shortcut remote. However,
depending on your house/appartment size, it implies building a new mesh with enough routers because Zigbee and Thread routers are incompatible. So, if you want to use both, you are building and maintaining two meshes. I certainly had to strategically place a router to make sure that the connection to the KAJPLATS is good-enough.
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Thank you fot thr answers. Maybe when time comes I can add a thread dongle like a sonoff to my existing conbee dongle and run them in paralell?
exactly 
There are still plenty of Zigbee devices on the market. I have had good luck with Third Reality stuff, available on Amazon.
Eventually maybe I’ll have to look at Thread/Matter. As seen here, there’s a healthy debate going on as to whether the added “security” features are going to be a help or hinderance to people who don’t want Big Tech creating walled gardens. I’m on the sidelines until we have more real-world experience about the direction the manufacturers are going to steer that ship.
Replace them? It might be smart to use dumb lights and smart switches 
You might even hack dumb lights to make them last various decades instead of only a few years (or just buy some unbuyable Dubai lamps?). Otherwise you can stick with the the planned obsolescence - with highest category bulbs 
Hold your horses! 
It’s almost perfect! ON and OFF always works - guaranteed* 
*as long their is no reason for the cloud to send command to deactivate or limit your matter device
This mechanism enhances security by ensuring that only verified devices operate within the network, preventing unauthorized access.
In summary, the use of a DCL allows for effective management and security of Matter devices, enabling remote disabling in response to failed device attestation.
Well, this is the Home Assistant community and OpenThread Border Router (in HA) has NAT64 disabled by default, so Thread devices cannot reach the Internet. I’d also suspect that there will be a similar toggle once there is Thread 1.4 support for not assigning and/or routing global IPv6 addresses.
I’m more in favor of a fully local protocol like Zigbee, but with IKEA switching to Thread + Matter and an increasing number of e.g. Aqara Thread devices, I think that long-term the writing is on the wall. The value of getting a 10 Euro IKEA smart plug, light bulb, or temperature meter should not be underestimated.
In the meanwhile, the pragmatic thing to do seems to be to go for multi-protocol and then choose the device that has the best price/performance trade-off, regardless of the protocol.
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That seems to be where the debate is currently centered. As I understand it, there appear to be provisions in the Matter standards (which are proprietary and you need to pay to be able to even see them) which suggest that devices need to be “authenticated” using some sort of process similar to SSL certificates. If that fails because the manufacturer doesn’t renew the certificate or simply chooses not to continue supporting it, the device falls back to some less-functional state, also defined by the manufacturer.
This could be a great security protection. Or a great way for the manufacturers to drive profits by keeping customers in their walled garden, or paying subscription fees.
Given the uncertainty, I’m hedging my bets and not buying this hardware until I know which way it’s going. I’ve been burned before by manufacturers doing exactly these sorts of things. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
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It’s for your own safety!
In case you want to commission a device and it fails the online/cloud device attestation (the matter controller does this for your thread device) you can’t use it
It probably only gets worse in the future. Enshittification hits hard and owning hardware might soon be a thing of the past 
And now please all stop criticizing matter - it’s simply great (and guarantees local on/off control*).
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I understand and share your concern, but I don’t think it applies to most current Matter devices like the IKEA Matter over Thread devices? So, they should be fairly safe.
This seems like misinformation, at least for now? It’s possible to commission devices directly through Home Assistant by using a dedicated Bluetooth dongle and you can disable the part where the Matter server does the attestation/check against the certificate blockchain.
Also, the attestation in the Silicon Labs text that you linked describes is performed purely by the commissioner. Yes, the commissioner verifies that the certificate is not revoked. But since in the HA case we are taking about an open source implementation, you could just disable this verification step.
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See, this confusion is why I’m staying on the sidelines.
My understanding was that the device wouldn’t function without the commissioning process. So, there’s one dependency on the vendor’s infrastructure.
While it’s true that the devices don’t talk directly to the vendor’s cloud server, there does seem to be a requirement that the matter server (HA, in this case) pass along the status of the authentication which it does via an internet connection. And the device then has the option to “play dead” (go to a reduced functionality state) if that authentication is not forthcoming.
Again, I’m not allowed to read the specs (is that a red flag?) so I can’t verify any of this. I just know that a corporation’s only goal is maximizing profit, and I’ve seen what they’ve done in the IoT space in the past. I’m being careful not to draw any conclusions, but at the same time I’m not ready to bet against them continuing those past practices.
Do you have a source for this? The Matter spec describes the whole flow and everything (the overall commissioning and the attestation specifically) seems to be between the commissioner and the commissionee (the device). Also, the commissioner may still accept the device even if it fails the attestation if the user confirms that they want to add the device.
I couldn’t find anything about an authentication through the cloud (only that the commissioner can download the distributed ledger for attestation).
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There are Zigbee E27 bulbs available from Philips Hue, Aqara, Third Reality and probably many more.
I wouldn’t be worried about Ikea switching to Thread/Matter.
There are half a zillion manufacturers of Zigbee products, including light bulbs. I have four different brands of Zigbee bulbs in my house currently. Ikea is cheaper than most, but certainly not the only cheap one.
Yes, the market seems to be slowly shifting to Thread. But the shift is very slow.
Christmas has conveniently meant that older non-Matter items will be the Boxing Day specials that fly off the shelves and allow salespeople to start promoting Matter equipped devices exclusively.
Like vehicles, nobody wants last years model without a hefty discount.
After a brief pause where they try everything under the sun to configure their devices, they will be here in these forums looking for support, (most likely guided by outdated AI slop).
The new Ikea commanding devices (contact sensors, buttons, and controllers) communicate in either Zigbee or Matter over Thread. It uses some new chip that can switch between the two. In other words, the new devices will still work with the old bulbs. It’s kinda interesting to read about.
How Ikea Is Mastering the Blend of Thread and Zigbee | matter-smarthome
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My understanding is that you can pair the new and old devices directly (without hub) via Zigbee touchlink.
But you cannot pair the new devices to a Zigbee hub. You can pair the new devices only via Matter over Thread to a Thread radio (but I may be wrong).
(so still, you have the largest choice if you have both: a Zigbee and a Thread stick/radio)
There’s several reports that the Matter devices from IKEA can be paired to “hubs” like Zigbee2MQTT.
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