I purchased some IKEA matter devices and was trying to add them to Home Assistant. When I try to add them I get a “Failed to save network credentials” error.
When I got to Settings → Companion App → Debugging → Thread, there is no border router listed and the page is blank.
Going to the Thread option I try to send the credentials to the phone I get “no border router defined” and when I send the credentials to HA I get “No preferred router found”
I have been able to add matter devices before to HA and have no idea where the preferred border router disappeared to.
Are you sure your other Matter devices are Matter over Thread? Devices can support Matter over WiFi instead, so just because you’ve added a Matter device before doesn’t mean you have added a Matter device over Thread before.
Maybe a stupid question, but is your HA still showing OTBR as the preferred network and does it have a key sign?
I had been playing with OTBR updates and beta recently and ran into some strange situations where I had suddenly multiple routers, no TLV and other hassles.
What border router device do you have? The new IKEA devices use Thread instead of WiFi. Fell into the same pit and had to buy an additional dongle for thread.
It staggers me how complex matter/thread is/has become at the expense of functionality. There’s a tremendous focus on protocol, thinking big vendors will cooperate in a meaningful way. That is slowly becoming true, at the expense of development of devices and new capabilities. Matter/thread remains a sandbox at my house for that reason.
I’m definitely in the thread camp and don’t want devices dependent on a wifi router to operate.
My biggest limitation is lighting. I can’t get matter/thread switches that do device-device scenes to spec, because even after the years of invested time in developing matter/thread, there is barely a released spec for scenes. I’ve had this same capability for almost 20 years in my HA systems, and sticking with that because this is still a design and product vacuum for matter/thread.
My limited sandbox for matter/thread using fan switches shows that it works and the tools (in beta) show that it’s coming along and providing helpful mesh diagnostics. But I’m guessing I’m year or more away from seriously considering deploying it as there is nothing to look at today and specs will need updates as the vendors hash it out.
