Matter/Thread is nothing but a Big Tech scam!

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Matter and Thread were sold to the consumer as “open” to all. So the consumer could decide what home automation platform they could use with their zigbee based devices.

Well 12 months or so on nothing could be further from the truth!

Unlike good ol’ Zigbee 3.0, you can only add a thread device by scanning a unique QR (or manually adding) via yr phone. No direct addition into HA. And there is no easy push button pairing buttons… no way! And you have to keep that code…otherwise you might never be able to add the device again… All Anti - competitive right there!

I have been “experimenting” (because that is exactly what it feels like) with OTBR, thread and matter for around that long now with a few devices and always always I come up against what looks to me like anti-competitive behaviour on the part of big tech preventing the easy and seamless addition of thread capable devices into home assistant.

The last device I tried to add (A nanoleaf downlight) has been a nightmare to be honest. Why do I get the impression Apple is stearing the addition of this device into their thread home ecosystem?

Sure feels like downright anti-competitve behaviour to me!

I now have

2 x OTBR’s

1 x Amazon Thread signal I can’t get rid of (it’s buried somewhere out of sight of the consumer in the Amazon app - so it can’t easily be turned off…smells of anti-competitive behaviour again! )

No nanoleaf successfully added into HA (after near on 3 hrs and 20 attempts to hard reset)

A Thread setup (after unsuccessfully tryign to add nanoleaf) that can no longer add devices - (Operation failed to store thread credentials in keychain error can not store frozen credentials) now wants me to “send credentials to phone” and “send credentials to Home assistant” (Error no preferred network found)… Anti-competitive again!!!

This is still the case after I rolled back a few days after I lost my entire OTBR set up (and all the connected devices) in order to regain control of them (and not have to manually re-add them all again)

And OTBR is owned by Google right? So after working out how to webGUI into that - do you think it is easy to find where to delete the active dataset? Hell no!!! (anti-competitive behaviour again!!!)

So that’s Apple, Amazon and Google… the BIG 3 TECH!

All trying their darndest to stop someone just using a non bigtech thread network…

Frankly I find this bloody outrageous…

Thread and Matter is a total CON JOB

YES you read that correctly -

The home automation consumer has well and truly been shafted on this one…

And don’t say “it’s me”! Sure I get I don’t have a PhD in Linux or YAML- but I am no newbie to HA!!! I run it on a repurposed Dell micro. I run 72 odd ZHA zigbee devices, 4 SLMZ06’s, 135 networked devices… I could go on… but I am not a novice to all this…

I’d start Thread and OTBR all over again… if only I could be convinced I am wrong…

Frankly I feel like selling this entire load of expensive thread garbage on ebay…

(Just MO)

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If Apple and Google decide to work together, you can bet it won’t be in the interest of the consumer.

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So where is HA heading with this? I’m not blaming them (by any stretch) …they are clearly fighting an uphill battle but frankly from an end users point of view - so far the integration of matter/thread is a total PITA…

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There have been so many changes to OTBR over the last few years.
I guess a necessary task to thwart the tech giants at strangling the industry
Congrats to the HA team for having a go… but Geez… makes it a pretty big task for the mere mortal end user to figure out where we are in all this!
(I Just spent hrs with Grok exploring all the changes!!! ) trying to find a way to restore “adding devices”.

So how do you currently remove a frozen dataset out of OTBR?..in order to remove the following errors >

Operation failed to store thread credentials in keychain error can not store frozen credentials

“send credentials to phone” and “send credentials to Home assistant”
(Error no preferred network found)

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Now you saw it first hand.
I never went for thread or matter because in the begging it sound to me like something that is too good to be true.
I sticked to zigbee and esphome.
Now you see… You spent your money but eventually will have to dump all that crap and find something that work.
I can suggest you to stay with zigbee as it is open source project and will not vanish over night.

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“Never ascribe to malice, that which you can ascribe to stupidity.”

Well maybe companies aren’t stupid, but it was a very messed up and uncoordinated roll-out, & things have barely gotten better since. I may not agree with you re the WHY of how this happened, but I certainly agree about the WHAT of our current state.

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Wow… rebuilding my OTBR and trying to rejoin the Nanoleaf you realise how evil Apple is (making it so hard to get rid of the old data in the Keychain on the iphone)…Can’t add it due to the “thread network is unsupported error.”… Anti - competitive (again)?!! (Just MO)

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…so I try add via an old iphone (that hasn’t been previously apple hijacked) …update to the latest companion app …and get blocked with the “you need to use the companion app” error … (even though I am using the latest version of the app)… I am now into day 2 trying to install a simple downlight … this is absolutely absurd… round and round in circles.

This reminds me of the days of the death of movie disc media… if you make it so darn difficult with DRM to add a genuine paid for disc movie DRM digital copy (that came with the disc) to a “generic” digital library - why would a consumer pay top dollar (only to be able to use the DRM in XYZ studio’s app?) …if those ripping off or gaming the system (not so in this case - just wanting to add it to a generic home auto ecosystem) are getting a better experience paying 1/10 as much…

Thread/Matter is a bloody shambles

If I can’t put the device in the ecosystem I (who paid for the darn thing!!!) wants - I will just not pay any more top dollar for thread over matter equipment.

Period

  • I give up
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Ok this is a blog to document a mere mortals attempt to get a stable OTBR network established and to simply add a nanoleaf matter over thread downlight

1/ I have got rid of my double OTBR gosting
2/ I have got a stable OTBR connection to an SMlight slzb-06 after hrs of trying to figure out what was wrong - turned out I hadn’t enabled IPv6 on the router (how the heck was I supposed to know that was necessary?
3/ I still can’t add the nanoleaf because of the ludicrous apple stealing the dataset problem
4/ I have tried to add the nanoleaf to my amazon thread network - it doesn’t reliably show up in ath Alexa app - I see the OTBr network in that though!

I thought - you ripper!!!

(edit 2 hrs later) _ I managed tp add it to Amazon Thread, but do u think I can easily transfer with the shared code? No sir!!! KBOOM proof of anti-competitive behavior right there!

Then to join it …without pairing to Amazonf 1st (via that) - it was after my thread network key

Why oh WHY isn’t this easy to find in Home assistant…

Come on guys… this has been out now well over a year… thsi shoudl be a non brainer for end users…

I mean Geeeeeez

What does a bloke have to do to simply add a thread light bulb?

Matter/Thread is a BLOODY SHAMBLES
The whole protocol should be scrapped…

They should START AGAIN

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This has the wiff of Big Tech anticompetitive behaviour ALL OVER IT!!!
Boycott Thread!
JustMO

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Today you can “pay” for things and get no ownership. Due diligence is mandatory - specially buying tech stuff :warning:

And yes, regarding matter: The vendor holds the full power over “your” device :put_litter_in_its_place:

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You read the docs.

The need for IPv6 communication is mentioned 7 times in the Matter integration docs & twice more in the Thread docs.

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Ok ok fair enough - but ya’ll know HA… there is always a lot going on!

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It’s still unstable. Even with IPv6 enabled on the network… two open thread border routers have appeared(again) …after I thought I got rid of that… my primary OTBR still drops off …there are only so many times you can reboot a SLZB-06!!! (Do I enable IPv6 on the SLZB-06?? as well… or not?) who the heck knows! (doesn’t say you should in the manual and there are warning signs all over the SLZB-06 GUI…)…I mean are the Ukranians talking anymore to the US? (Hello Nabu Casa?!..anybody there??)!!! There are way way too many variables to even call this beta! Alpha it is!!! I still categorise thread in general and (thread within HA in particular) as a total and utter dog’s breakfast… there are only so many times you can start and restart the OTBR add on as well… I am done with this cr$p! …Onwards and upwards!