I recently migrated from a Apple Home network with ~30 thread devices (mostly Eve and Nanoleaf) to HA. Thread was terribly instable with everything on the Apple thread network until I created a new Thread network using SkyConnect in HA and migrated all devices to it. It is better but still devices go offline from time to time and on each HA reboot the integration fails for a few devices, forcing me to manually relaunch the integration for these devices until they work. With that experience, there are a couple of issues that need to be solved:
- Pairing a matter device to a thread network created by HA currently has no UI in HA, forcing us to use JS code in the browser console to run a WebSocket connection to the thread border router, see this post. This is neither documented nor usable. You cannot expect anyone to go this route when purchasing a e.g. Nanoleaf Thread light bulb.
- Displaying a thread/matter network with link qualities visually should be possible in HA, similar to the network map in Zigbee2MQTT.
- HA should have a network analysis as choosing channels is an issue when you also run a Zigbee network, another Thread network,…
- I wish I could let my existing Apple devices join the thread network that is managed and created by HA/SkyConnect/OTBR as additional border routers. Currently they sit in their otherwise empty network.
- iOS apps like from Eve and Nanoleaf should be able to access the HA OTBR thread network, currently they only search for their devices in the Apple Thread network, so any matter device that joins a OTBR thread network is invisible to them.
- I’m hoping for cheap border routers that one can easily add to an existing setup to increase range and stability and the single point of failure.
Thread is a visionary idea but its implementation is still not stable and complete, which is why I decided not to buy any more Matter devices but only Zigbee devices. But as I don’t want to throw out the 30 homekit/threat/matter devices I own, I hope for quick improvements.
PS: Eve recently delayed their Matter firmware for many devices by a month or so, so it’s not just HA but other companies being frustrated/challenged with Matter too.