I foolishly asked AI (Gemini) if the new IKEA kit would run on my setup using ZigBee.
Only to find out that it’s pretty much strictly matter. I’ve read other threads that say the lamps can be changed but the sensors and temp sensors cannot.
Long story short I need a thread router.
I don’t want it to clash with my current zigbee setup and I don’t want to buy the IKEA hub as that would sit separate to my intel nuc which runs my HA instance.
So I’m looking for suggestions to a thread router that runs on usb?
For Home Assistant, the best dedicated Thread border router right now is the Home Assistant ZBT-2 (also sold as the SkyConnect 2). It handles both Zigbee and Thread/Matter, plugs in via USB, and is directly supported by the HA team so firmware updates come through the UI.
If you already have an Apple TV 4K, HomePod mini, or a recent Google Nest Hub, those also act as Thread border routers and HA can use them fine - you do not need a dedicated device.
IKEA’s newer kit (like DIRIGERA hub and KVADRAT/TRÅDFRI bulbs) has been moving to Matter-over-Thread for its newer products. The bulbs themselves can sometimes be added directly to HA via Matter, but the hub is not required for that path - you pair them directly to your border router instead.
The short version: get the ZBT-2 if you want a single device that does Zigbee and Thread, or check if you already have a compatible border router on your network first.
I use the Aqara M100 with my IKEA thread devices (GRILLPLATS Plug, MYGGBETT door/window sensors, BILRESA dual buttons and KLIPPBOK water leak sensors). It is the cheapest TBR I could find and has given me no problems. It is a simple TBR<>WIFI bridge - that meant I could place it in an optimal spot in the house (which in my case was nowhere near the Home Assistant server). It is USB-powered (only connected through WIFI though).
SLZB devices from smlight provide a OTBR on the device. The option is still in development. The last dev versions show a good progress and smlight can help in case of problems. I have such a device and after discussion with smlight I got it working.
I’m using the SLZB-MR1U to run both OTBR and a Zigbee to mqtt hub as the device has two radios. I had some problems with the the battery powered matter devices dropping offline, but that turned out to be caused by network time outs on the matter server and had nothing to do with the OTBR. Up till a month ago it also provided a usb to tcp bridge for my RfxCom device.
I’m phasing out all non-matter battery devices. I had rfx433, zwave, zigbee and matter. The rfx433 is already gone, the zwave is a leftover from a Ring alarm system and will be phased out when it starts giviing problems, the zigbee is down to a couple of temperature sensors and a switch.
Yes, I want to reduce the number of platforms. I never invested much in Zigbee. I started 6 years ago with Rfx433 but the limitations of that platform, mainly the lack of a proper command-response mechanism in most, if not all, products, proved to be too restrictive. I was left with a couple of zwave motion detectors and a keypad after I decommissioned a Ring alarm system over privacy concerns with it’s cloud system. I got it all running, but I would have a hard time to reimplement it when something goes wrong.
I standardized on esp32/Tasmota for all wifi mains powered IOT devices, I got some 60+ running in and about the house together with a couple of RPi clones where Tasmota could not function.
Battery powered Matter/Thread devices are becoming cheap and offer a growing number of functions.
And yes, the complexity of a Matter/Thread configuration is daunting. I switched to matter-serverjs from the python matter-server and now I’m having problems commissioning new devices. I’m running Home Assistant Core and also the matter server in Docker. So no support and you are on your own. It’s a challenge but it keeps an 81 years old brain active and hopefully healthy.
That’s impressive! My father that is a couple of years older than you stopped caring about tech 15 years ago, now I need to help him everything that uses electricity.
