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IKEA ditches Zigbee for Thread going all in on Matter smart homes

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Re: IKEA ditches Zigbee for Thread going all in on Matter smart homes

#31

Post by Toutouxc »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #21

This sucks. Matter is a closed ecosystem, enforced using a public key infrastructure (PKI) and device attestation certificates. Thread seems to require paying royalties if you want to ship devices. It’s disappointing that IKEA claims that this move is towards a more open ecosystem. On top of that, the switch breaks compatibility with existing hardware (except for the Touchlink functionality). If you have a bunch of Z…

> If you have a bunch of Zigbee devices, but at some point want to add some of the new ones, you need to start thinking about replacing all the perfectly working Zigbee devices or have a fragmented network.

Yes, if you're using the manufacturer's half-assed smartphone app, but if you're on Home Assistant, like basically anyone who's serious about their smart home, having multiple kinds of smart devices isn't really a problem. It's just one more radio to configure. Some people run both Zigbee and Zwave, some people run Zigbee + Wi-Fi or even Zigbee + Zwave + Wi-Fi + cloud integrations, Home Assistant doesn't care.

Re: IKEA ditches Zigbee for Thread going all in on Matter smart homes

#33

Post by mongol »

My IKEA was missing a lot of Trådfri assortment when I visited this week. I started to have doubts if they had abandoned the home automation niche. Now when I am searching their site, much is gone. But I guess they are clearing the inventory for a Threads relaunch

Re: IKEA ditches Zigbee for Thread going all in on Matter smart homes

#35

Post by alex_duf »

gorgoiler wrote: post #13

My first reaction here was horror: Home Assistant and Zigbee integrate perfectly with IKEA’s devices, and the devices are beautifully designed! Please don’t take these away! Only the other day did I marvel at how a low battery indicator flashes on one of my remotes when I use it. A design flourish that I really appreciated. But I read that Thread supports IPv6 via mesh networking. It did always feel a bit awkward hav…

> It did always feel a bit awkward having Zigbee networking and IP networking competing over the same site

Funny, to me that's a feature. It makes the threat of a hacked device that exfiltrate data from within your network much less likely. I avoid any wifi device because of that.

Re: IKEA ditches Zigbee for Thread going all in on Matter smart homes

#36

Post by meepmorp »

Asmod4n wrote: post #28
madwolf wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? You can buy a very cheap ESP32 with Thread and easily build your own device with Matter/Thread and it will work. Doesn't seem that closed. There is OpenThread that is an open source implementation of Thread. Home Assistant is compatible with Matter over Thread devices... What's closed about this?

You can’t talk to other devices unless you got the private key of them.

> You can’t talk to other devices unless you got the private key of them

can you explain what you mean by this?

Re: IKEA ditches Zigbee for Thread going all in on Matter smart homes

#37

Post by Toutouxc »

vardump wrote: post #6

Does Thread work without cloud?

The question doesn't really make sense this way. Thread is more or less like Wi-Fi. It's a transport technology and protocol. It's HOW your devices can talk to each other. It's how they can say "I'm here and I can see 'AirPurifier324' over there."

Matter is a bit like HTTP. It's WHAT your devices say to each other. It's a way for them to say "Hi, I'm a lightbulb and you can change my color and brightness."

Re: IKEA ditches Zigbee for Thread going all in on Matter smart homes

#38

Post by dgacmu »

nick__m wrote: post #25
AndrewDucker wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An excellent question - all I can do is point you at the research. See the top graph here: https://www.reddit.com/r/homeautomation/comments/nxmehn/clea...

I should have been more precise, I don't doubt the claim about latency nor speed, but I really doubt that running an ipv6 stack requires less power than running the simpler zigbee stack. Also one Thread advantage from that discussion made me laugh: safe as the internet, using proven IP technologies But thanks you for answering me!

I haven't measured it, but: in a lot of embedded situations, the radio transmission time is the single biggest consumer of power. Thread+matter being more efficient on number of packets transmitted per command (the reason latency is lower) could actually translate to battery savings.

Re: IKEA ditches Zigbee for Thread going all in on Matter smart homes

#39

Post by RandomThoughts3 »

nick__m wrote: post #17
AndrewDucker wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that Thread is lower latency and lower power than Zigbee.

How is that possible when thread use an ipv6 stack over 802.15.4 while zigbee use a simpler stack also over 802.15.4 ? The only thing I see is that manufacturers prefer an ip stack because it's "easier" to develop for.

> The only thing I see is that manufacturers prefer an ip stack because it's "easier" to develop for.

It is easier to develop on an ip stack.

You have great tooling and great libraries out of the box because pretty much everything uses ip nowadays.

Plus, at least part of the controllers people use for their smart home will use ip anyway. A non ip network will need a bridge.

> How is that possible when thread use an ipv6 stack over 802.15.4 while zigbee use a simpler stack also over 802.15.4?

Easy, zigbee doesn't use a simpler stack. Using the same physical layer protocol doesn't tell you anything about the rest of the stack.

It's actually pretty simple. 6LoWPAN which is what Thread uses is more efficient than the Zigbee network protocol. Packets are smaller and the routing is better. It's not particularly surprising to be honest because Thread was designed by people who knew Zigbee really well and were aiming for an improvement.

Re: IKEA ditches Zigbee for Thread going all in on Matter smart homes

#40

Post by 3nwf248 »

0x000xca0xfe wrote: post #30
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can anyone here confirm that Matter/Thread will be a bright, open, and happy new future? Sorry, it’s a closed ecosystem. It relies on PKI and device attestation to ensure that only devices from approved partners are usable. It’s unlikely that small players can participate, and zero chance of any homebrew scene.

And manufacturers tend to lock down their Matter devices, too, so you can't flash Tasmota or ESPHome on them. See: Shelly, Sonoff.

Not just tend to, have to. Matter certification requires flash encryption and FW signing.
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