Matter-over-wifi vs. vendor (Tapo/TP-Link)?

Configuration Matter/Thread
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Hi, I’m new to Matter and trying to understand a couple things:

  1. Without Thread, are there any advantages to adding devices as Matter wifi devices instead adding them through the vendor’s mobile app setup and then using an HA integration for that vendor? The second method gives more features in HA, but is there a downside?
  2. In the case of my Tapo/TP-Link L535E lightbulbs, after commissioning through Matter (over wifi), the devices showed up magically in the Tapo app and I could be added easily. Then I was able to upgrade the firmware. How does this work?

I now have 2 copies of each bulb, one through HA Matter and one through the TP-Link HA integration (though they were commissioned using HA, then later added to Tapo). I obviously don’t need two copies, so I’m trying to figure out which one I should remove, and if there’s any benefit to setting them up entirely through the Tapo app as wifi devices vs. as Matter devices with HA as the hub.

Thank you!

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Tapo smart lights right now have a few bugs with Matter (transitions had to be blocked in HA and sometimes the light does not do what it says) so in this case the answer is easy. Now, if they fix the issues and both Tapo and HA fully implement Matter 1.3 with groupcast, scene support, bindings, etc. that would be another story.

However, for Tapo sensors (those through the H100/H200 bridge), Matter is the clear winner since it is event-based instead of polling-based. A motion sensor will send the event right when the motion is detected. With the HA integration, HA is periodically polling the sensor to check if there’s movement and that means latency in the order of seconds and noticing lag in automations that turn on lights when there’s movement or a door opens for instance.

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