The State of Matter

[stefan.uytterhoeven]

Still lot of work. Once you joined the ha thread border router, you can’t join other tbr’s.
No network map, no idea of the strength of the connections, …I hope more people will work on matter. The three devices I have for the moment work good. But I don’t want to add too many matter/thread devices yet, for now.

[aleco]

I know that Matter isn’t just Thread. But having converted my Homekit setup to Home Assistant, many of my devices are Thread. So I’m hoping for continued focus on Thread: increasing stability by adding additional OTBR (until recently this decreased stability, not sure if I’ll notice when that bug has been resolved?) and displaying network topology and strength. Compared to the feature set of zigbee2mqtt Thread is still very, very basic.

[JohnAStebbins (John Stebbins)]

@deviantintegral

It sounds like Thread is going to require internet connectivity for all devices in the future . One of the nice things about Zigbee and Z-Wave is that once working, devices will continue to work until they physically break. With required internet connectivity, is there anything to prevent Thread devices from leaking data via analytics, or forced firmware updates that remove features? Will Home Assistant allow for a local-only border router implementation?

Well, guess I’ll not be using Matter With this as a requirement, there will be no way to know if any particular device will even commission (let alone continue to function normally) without access to the internet, so you can’t simply block internet access on your devices network for privacy. This is truly sad. Please tell me I’m wrong.

Edit: The weakly worded and deflecting privacy statement in the Matter FAQ should have been a warning sign: Matter FAQs | Frequently Asked Questions - CSA-IOT
Oh well

[dualtronic]

@system

The experimental multiprotocol firmware will remain available, but we will not recommend it to new users. Instead, we will focus on making sure the dedicated Zigbee and Thread firmwares deliver the best experience to users.

… That is why we do not recommend using this firmware [multiprotocol], and it will remain an experimental feature of Home Assistant Yellow and Home Assistant SkyConnect…

Just so I’m clear, multiprotocol SkyConnect firmware for will no longer be updated and improved? Therefore, if I want to get regular skyconnect firmware updates, will I need two separate Skyconnects, one for ZIgbee and the other for Thread?

[NathanCu (Nathan Curtis)]

I didn’t read it as a support issue, I would actually read it as: ‘If you want functional Zigbee and Matter over Thread networks right now you will have them on separate coordinators, and no there’s no ETA because there’s other priorities.’

[dualtronic]

The words “…will remain experimental” is what’s bothering me. If they plan to eventually restart multiprotocol development, it is very unclear.

[aruffell]

@wolf99

other things are such as: adding HTTPS, addiong remote access, adding voice control from google assistant,

While it can be done for free, you could support Home Assistant development by subscribing to Nabu Casa which gives you all the above without any hassle. Monthly/yearly cost is low and totally worth it.

[NathanCu (Nathan Curtis)]

It’s open source, anyone could pick up and roll with it. But I wouldn’t read experimental as anything to hang any hopes on.

[dualtronic]

Yes, it’s open source, but Skyconnect wasn’t free. So I was kinda expecting it to work. lol

That said, I understand that multiprotocol is new to the home automation market. Plus it was taking a risk expecting Matter protocol to be more formalized by now.

However, I do like that Nabu is trying things and not being afraid to fail (how many colors of HA hub before they get it right). But that is also part of the fun of using this platform. It leads ahead of most other proprietary platforms.