I have looked around but did not find answers to my specific set of circumstances. My HA is installed on a virtual machine running on a mini computer. I am considering a Nuki Smart Lock and their Keypad 2 NFC running on Matter over Thread. I currently am not using Matter/Thread and have no hardware dedicated to doing so. I also have a bunch of Philips Hue Zigbee devices with a Hue Bridge. I also have a separate Z-Wave dongle attached to a USB port on the mini computer.
From some of the research I've done, a PoE thread border router is recommended for a virtual machine installation. Does this community agree or disagree? My router does not have any PoE ports so I would need a PoE injector or switch.
I haven't decided at this point if I want to enable the tap to open (NFC) capabilities of the keypad, but I would like to keep that option open. We use Samsung/Android phones (nothing Apple in our house), so my current understanding that I would have to use SmartThings in order to access a digital key in Samsung wallet. What I do not really understand is if that SmartThings requirement limits the thread border routers that I could use. I would like to keep everything local as much as possible which is why I'm undecided about a SmartThins integration.
The only Zigbee devices I currently have are Philips Hue devices connected to the Hue Bridge. Is there any advantage at this point to getting a combined Matter/Zigbee device? I have also read opinions that it is best to keep these different protocols on separate devices anyway.
If anyone has any recommendations for a thread border router and/or a PoE injector or switch, I would greatly appreciate hearing them. While I am not looking to spend needlessly, reliability and stability are more important to me than low cost. If more information is needed, please let me know.
I use an USB antenna on my Proxmox server for Thread and it works nicely.
I see no special reason for or against to use an ethernet device for that purpose, unless you run a hypervisors that can not passthrough the USB ports.
Microsoft's Hyper-V had that issue at a time, but I do not know if it still persist.
PoE is just the powering of the device and can also be through an injector, and also often by just a normal power supply.
My original foray into home automation was on a Homeseer device. So a lot of my original devices, many of which I still use, are Z-wave. From the beginning with HA, I have been using a HomeSeer 800 Series SmartStick G8 LR attached to a USB port on the mini PC and Z-Wave JS UI. This setup has been working very well for these devices.
However, anytime my PC reboots, I have to manually go into the VM and disconnect the SmartStick from the host PC in order for it to be available in the VM. (If there is a way to automate this process, please share.)
One option that I have been considering is the SMLIGHT SLZB-Ultima. At this point I don't really need the Zigbee adapter on the SLZB-Ultima because all of the Zigbee devices I currently have are Philips Hue and connect through the Hue Bridge (as noted above). But I'm not sure is there is any benefit to having this addition Zigbee adapter.
Besides being able to use PoE which would give me more flexiblity on placement (even though I think the placement with USB would probably work), if I'm reading things correctly, I could plug my existing Z-Wave SmartStick into a USB port on the SLZB-Ultima. If that is true, I wouldn't have to worry about the USB pass through on the VM. Is that correct?
If the HA is set up to use the by-id path, then it should find it right away on reboots.
Other than that it can be an issue in your hypervisor. What hypervisor are you using?