It's time to renew my home automation system [Thread Border Router recommendation]

Hardware
1

Hi all,
It’s time to upgrade my home automation setup.
I’m using a ConBeeII dongle to coordinate the Zigbee network with Deconz which communicates with HA.
I would like to buy a device that could talk via Thread to new devices but that can handle Zigbee devices too.
Of course it should be well integrated with HA, but I think that this should be an easy task for Matter, and It should be easily manageable and configurable on its own. It should be “made for this” so I wouldn’t like to use for example a smart speaker to manage my Thread network.

So please if you have any suggestion or recommendation that would want to share I’ll be happy to hear from you.

Thanks

2

The benefit with Matter over Thread is that you are not limited to only one device to control it.
Multiple devices is possible and I would recommend multiple also, because the network recovery faster when one of the controlling devices are restarted.

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3

Thanks @WallyR I’ll take this in consideration.

4

Thanks,

Interesting
Is there a dumbed down howto for us to follow anywhere ?

5

Multi protocol (Zigbee and Thread) on the same stick is no longer recommended

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6

Get 2 skyconnects and put one into zigbee mode and one into thread mode, else invest in a GL-S200 as your thread border router if you want one that also does BT via MQTT.

7

Well that never looked plausible in the first place, will continue to use the Sonoff as my Zigbee coordinator and the Skyconnect for matter or have I got my understanding completely wrong and need to RTFM ?

8

Multipan with the skyconnect was doable early on and was stable for a while but support and work has been on hold for a while so its been reccomended to not use it until they start working on it again.

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9

What about a separate device such as Zemismart M1 hub or Aqara Smart hub M3 or Samsung SmarThings V3?

10

Its up to you what suits your needs, I use a switchbot hub 2 for my bots to convert them from BT to matter over wifi whilst also getting a nice temp and humidity sensor for the bathroom out of it that does not need to rely on batteries.

11

I would look for a hub as hardware device-agnostic as possible especially for the ZigBee part that could be the most pain-full.
I have some Innr plugs and Aqara motion and water sensors and a couple of Hue motion sensors too.
To day I can manage to see them in Deconz via ConBeeII
Tomorrow I would like to still see them in the new “hub” waiting for replacing them with thread/matter devices

12

It’s why I have a skyconnect for my zigbee devices, the GL-S200 for my Matter over thread devices and currently the hub 2 for switchbot devices that can take advantage of it to convert them to matter like the bots and the lock that I got to try out with my door.

I’m waiting for them to release the z-wave version of the skyconnect when I have a need to add z-wave based devices.

It’s been so far the most headache free and stable setup I have atm since my USB BT adapters died before getting that hub 2 and multipan issues when it started to crop up was the root issue why ZHA was constantly stuck on reboots.

Currently the only matter over thread devices I have are the aqara p2 door and window sensors (great battery life so far) and the main matter over wifi devices are that hub 2 as well as the useelink power boards I got, everything else is zigbee.

I use a mbeat 7 port hub to connect the skyconnect to my nuc in my rack and have one of the bots dedicated with a battery eliminator cable on the power botton for that usb port for easy power cycling when I need it for the skyconnect.

I have another battery eliminator cable coming for the second bot that I am using with the HDMI switch I am using to swap input when I need to connect a system I am working on at the time via the wireless HDMI adapter I have.

2 Likes
13

Mate, a quick question about the P2 sensors - do they have actual audio alarms or am I presuming from the product page the alarm is simply a notification ?

MTIA

14

I wouldn’t get a Thread router until there is a device I want to get that doesn’t have a Zigbee equivalent.

If you have too many devices for 1 Zigbee network then you can always just have 2 Zigbee networks. Z2M seems to be the most recommended platform, their website has a list of recommended devices.

15

They are reed sensors so no audio, you tie the audio in via your HA automation and which devices you need that to output to.

i.e I have my front door one set to capture an image from my front door camera and play a red alert sound on my phone when I am not home should the door be opened at the time and when I am home and its after the sun sets it turns on the light switch for my ceiling light just above the door when opened and turns it off when closed.

I have tasker set to the channel name set in the companion app to play set the volume on my phone, play the audio when the notification comes up then put it in silent mode again for those that I need an audio alert for.

I have another sensor setup in a way that lets me get a reminder should I leave the night latch unlocked when I get into bed via my bed sensor (aqara leak sensor put into occupancy mode and a pressure mat just with its wires latched to the screws on the bottom) since my door setup it’s a pain to get a smart lock installed and I need to find one that fits the door setup.

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16

Thanks, that’s disappointing as I wanted to add them into my alarm triggered routine to create as much light and noise as possible :joy:

17

You can do that, like I said you use them as a conditional trigger for it via choose and trigger by in the actions.

alias: Front Door Automations
description: ""
mode: single
triggers:
  - type: opened
    device_id: 03871f3593f918ba9afb5940f71a952b
    entity_id: e08f1a49ce17fcf1b04285f5429ddcb4
    domain: binary_sensor
    id: Front Door Opened
    trigger: device
  - type: not_opened
    device_id: 03871f3593f918ba9afb5940f71a952b
    entity_id: e08f1a49ce17fcf1b04285f5429ddcb4
    domain: binary_sensor
    id: Front Door Closed
    trigger: device
  - type: not_locked
    device_id: 83e0d94891771f4f463e42df143323ec
    entity_id: 2aebe9bb4271fe9cf8280b7c6f83d48c
    domain: binary_sensor
    id: Unlocked
    trigger: device
conditions: []
actions:
  - choose:
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id:
              - Front Door Opened
          - condition: and
            conditions:
              - condition: sun
                before: sunrise
                after: sunset
        sequence:
          - type: turn_on
            device_id: 1f3f39e0a505c5adfd668d916388ea27
            entity_id: 55576b4d74c11d42618a4fc5502ffc9c
            domain: light
        alias: Front Door Opened when Home
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id:
              - Front Door Closed
        sequence:
          - type: turn_off
            device_id: 1f3f39e0a505c5adfd668d916388ea27
            entity_id: 55576b4d74c11d42618a4fc5502ffc9c
            domain: light
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id:
              - Front Door Opened
          - condition: and
            conditions:
              - condition: device
                device_id: 17903763f8567efcbf15f58c9c025aa5
                domain: device_tracker
                entity_id: b94b4d75797546a78976efe5761d3575
                type: is_not_home
        sequence:
          - metadata: {}
            data:
              title: Alert!
              message: Someone Has Broken In!
              data:
                sticky: true
                notification_icon: mdi:alarm-light
                color: red
                image: /api/camera_proxy/camera.front_door
                channel: alarm
                actions:
                  - action: URI
                    title: Open Camera
                    uri: /lovelace/cctv
            action: notify.mobile_app_rkphone
        alias: Front Door Opened when Not Home
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id:
              - Unlocked
          - condition: and
            conditions:
              - condition: device
                device_id: 17903763f8567efcbf15f58c9c025aa5
                domain: device_tracker
                entity_id: b94b4d75797546a78976efe5761d3575
                type: is_not_home
        sequence:
          - metadata: {}
            data:
              title: Alert!
              message: Front Door Latch is Unlocked.
              data:
                sticky: true
                notification_icon: mdi:alarm-light
                color: red
                image: /api/camera_proxy/camera.front_door
                channel: alarm
                actions:
                  - action: URI
                    title: Open Camera
                    uri: /lovelace/cctv
            action: notify.mobile_app_rkphone
        alias: Front Door Latch Unlocked when Not Home

If you don’t have speakers you can cast the audio in the home then get a few of these:

18

I read that Aqara M3 hub has limited support for 3rd parties Matter devices.
What about Aeotec Smart hub? It could be a valid alternative?

19

It is part of the Matter protocol to be able to have multiple Thread Border Routers.
The way to do it depends on what Thread Border Router you have running your mesh network and what Thread Border Router you want to add.

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