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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

#131

Post by radicality »

macNchz wrote: post #93
Toutouxc wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Perhaps I never put enough effort into it, but I've slowly coalesced on only having IKEA smart home products after years of acquiring piecemeal stuff and trying to wire it together with Home Assistant. I've shut down HA, and with every non-IKEA "smart" thing I have nowadays I just use the manufacturer's app (though I've become pretty sour on most smart devices overall and avoid them when possible). I didn't really ca…

Surprised at your issues with HA. Similarly to others that responded, my setup with HA / zigbee2mqtt and >30 zigbee devices (including some ikea buttons) has been pretty rock solid over many years, including easy migrations from an rpi3 -> rpi4 -> rpi5 (with ssd).

Usually when I had some zigbee issue, it was because of a crappy product (eg some wired air sensor that would spam the zigbee network every 1 second with a lot of data), so then I just stop using such devices and before I buy I check compatibility with HA / zigbee2mqtt.

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

#132

Post by dzikimarian »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #103
macNchz wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I never put enough effort into it, but I've slowly coalesced on only having IKEA smart home products after years of acquiring piecemeal stuff and trying to wire it together with Home Assistant. I've shut down HA, and with every non-IKEA "smart" thing I have nowadays I just use the manufacturer's app (though I've become pretty sour on most smart devices overall and avoid them when possible). I didn't really ca…

That's exactly the reason I'm hesitant to dive into Home Assistant myself. I want my smart-home devices to Just Work. I want them to be appliances .

View above is bit outdated. Yes, there was a lot of yaml in the past. Right now you can just install Home Assistant OS and configure it from GUI.

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

#133

Post by jauntywundrkind »

The lamp+speaker is interesting. Wish it had usb-c for power, and or wireless charging.

A pity there's no home standards for audio streaming. Matter Cast is an abomination, unfortunately: from what I can tell it requires native apps for each device, and there's not really an app store system, and indeed seemingly many devices only can stream via the pre-installed software!!

Really emphasizes the incredible power of Netflix's DIAL protocol, which tells a device to go to a URL & opens some command channels. Which is, if you squint, what Chromecast 's protocol was for a long long time (now I think there's also the ability to ship native apps to devices too?).

Really glad to see Ikea on board here. This creates a lot of pressure for other devices makers to modernize & use the much improved Matter stack, with much better network performance & much more standardization for Apple Google & potentially other control fabrics to make viable home systems, something Z-wave and Zigbee weren't positioned to make great progress on.

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

#134

Post by jermberj »

delusional wrote: post #122
turtlebits wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Home Assistant "just works". Yes it has a ton of knobs, but in the 3 years I've been running it, it's had no issues. Certain manufacturer devices being flaky, yes, but as a platform, it's been rock solid. I've not touched its config in over a year and everything works as it should.

> Certain manufacturer devices being flaky, yes, but as a platform This makes me a little weary of your comment. I don't think I'd really care if my lights not working was due to a "manufacturer being flaky" if they worked yesterday, but don't today. Are you talking about devices being flaky on first setup (which sucks, but is understandable), or are you talking about them being flaky after an update?

If I had to guess, they're probably referring to the way that certain devices broadcast their APIs to external services. A lot of them have no intention of allowing open access to APIs (e.g., my mini-split controller requires a slight hack to get it connected to HA).

That is, the flakiness isn't due to HA updates breaking connections or an unstable server, but rather manufacturers designing closed and/or brittle systems. Try as they might, the HA authors and surrounding community can only do so much for such devices.

Also, I believe the word you're looking for is 'wary' (as in, to be skeptical or suspicious), not 'weary' (as in, to be tired). :)

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

#135

Post by kenmacd »

vardump wrote: post #69
Toutouxc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Ok, let me ask another way. Can it operate without an internet connection and with an open standard that lets the me, the user, to be in control using a hub (if necessary) and software I choose, including an open source option should I so choose? Or do I have to use proprietary hubs and software to control the devices? In short, are there any end user hostile features or can I use the devices like how Zigbee works?

I've done everything using old Particle Xenon boards (nrf52840 microcontroller) and didn't encounter anything 'user hostile'. Originally I had all the 'hub' stuff on one of the boards too, but the newer recommended way is to have the board be the 'radio' and to use a normal computer for the routing.

The matter network is just an IPv6 network, so I run coap server on my matter devices and then control them with command like 'coap-client -m post coap://[]/open_button'.

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

#136

Post by comandillos »

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…

This isn't entirely true, isn't it? I mean, the whole internet runs on a PKI and we need such a mechanism to ensure secure communication across devices in the network. I understand home devices that contain all sort of sensors and actuators should be handled in a similar fashion, isn't it?

I mean, that PKI doesn't exclude non-approved manufacturers from producing Matter devices, you can always trust their PAA (their CA) in your border router if it's not a well-known manufacturer. And also, I am pretty sure that if this is the case the Matter border router should warn you of this and ignore the fact that the PAA is not in the local store of root CAs (as we did in the times when we had https without Let's Encrypt and didn't want to pay Comodo to sign our certs)

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

#137

Post by bluGill »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #7
vachina wrote: post #5

Haha. Imagine a light switch that becomes obsolete like your wireless router.

Why can’t it keep working via manual control?

IF they design it to work that way it can. Do you trust the manufacture to do that though? This is not only do they need to design it that way, but also that they need to ensure it works in all the edge cases. I've been in software long enough to know there are a lot of weird edge cases nobody thinks of that are then missed for years.

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

#138

Post by bluGill »

madwolf wrote: post #68
mongol wrote: post #34

What is the equivalent for zigbee2mqtt for Matter/Threads?

You just need a Thread border router and Matter devices connect to your HA without problems. I use Apple TV as a border router.

That is my sticking point - every border router I can find has a bunch of other things I don't want. I don't want my lights available from the internet, I just want to turn on the shed outside light from inside the house when I have guests. (since they are likely to park by the shed and walk to the house)

That is I don't want google/amazon/samsung/apple to control my house. Most border routers are also connect to our smart home system. (there are exceptions but it isn't clear if they are better)

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

#139

Post by poulpy123 »

Toutouxc wrote: post #31
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…

most people don't want to manage a self-hosted server just for interacting with some smart devices in their home

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

#140

Post by snickerdoodle12 »

amanda99 wrote: post #130
snickerdoodle12 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just look at how long this page is: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/matter/ Adding a device now requires a whole song & dance with bluetooth, a mobile phone and god knows what else. Meanwhile zigbee is: 1. Buy a zigbee stick, there are dozens, they all work great 2. Press the permit join button in home assistant 3. Press a button on the device for 10 seconds or 3 times or whatever 4. You're done and it wor…

Look, I agree with you and as someone with Home Assistant, I much prefer Zigbee. But if you imagine a typical consumer, not a tech nerd, I think "smartphone and bluetooth" is by far preferable to your 4-step process.

To be fair, step 4 isn't a real step, step 1 is just buying the "hub" or "border router" or whatever, and step 2 & 3 are the same for Zigbee and Matter, the button is just somewhere else.

A typical consumer has bought a zigbee hub (like they need to buy a thread border router), then use their phone to press a button in the app and then they press a button on the device. Still dead simple and doesn't require flaky bluetooth from their phone, which in 2025 most androids still suffer from.

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