Isn't the HA cloud dongle able to do both because they're on the same 2.4 gigahertz or whatever?
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
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It makes sense. Hopefully it's more reliable than my Zigbee devices. I constantly have to power cycle devices made by a variety of manufacturers to get them to register again. And I've tried more than a few zigbee hubs. Can't say I'm a fan.
Never had this with ZigBee, one hub lots of different devices. Had to switch hub to USB2 at beginning to reduce interference but after that smooth sailing.
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Crap. I use pretty much exclusively Ikea stuff with my Home Assistant
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Initially, Dirigera will only support Matter device types that Ikea currently offers — so, no robot vacuums, door locks, or fridges. However, Granath says that as they launch more smart home products, the hub will be updated to support more device types.
Am I reading this right? Is there a filter possible where Ikea can decide to only accept Ikea ~mac addresses? If so, can they continue to ignore the wider product space?
... or will an Ikea thread hub automatically accept rando thread units as per standard and they're just using really bad sentence structure?
It has to do with the device types not the devices themselves. Matter itself didn't support every type of device at launch. It's a software support thing.
The second. It works with non-Ikea devices, but only works with device types that have an Ikea version like bulbs.
I’ve been using the OG tradfri devices since 2017/18 and have been very happy. Reliable, cheap to add a lightbulb or switch. Just works. Even integrated with home assistant v easily
xkcd 927 in action right there.
Zigbee works just fine, but needs a hub to share out devices eg internet access or HomeKit. But it is quick. How thread compares remains to be seen.
Thread is basically the same thing, but with a different upper level layer (IP), lower lever is still 802.15.4
Remains to be seen? What other information are you waiting for?
I’ve been using Thread devices for ~5 years now.
How are the battery lives of your devices? I have motion sensors throughout my house connected via zwave, and I replace their button batteries about every 18 months. Does Matter run over a low energy technology?
Thread is just as efficient based on the few battery operated motion sensors I have. That’s another reason Matter over Thread is better than Matter over WiFi.
I personally won’t buy another IoT device unless it’s Matter over Thread.
With that said, if you already use home assistant, and what you have works well enough. I wouldn’t rush to upgrade. But I would choose Matter + Thread over older technologies moving forward.
If you want to move to all HomeKit, then the upgrades are worth it.
In an ideal future world, Matter + Thread devices won’t need a vendor app to work. They just connect to your Amazon Voice assistant, or your Google Home, or your Apple HomeKit setup directly. (Or Home Assistant)
In the future we should see more vendors selling Matter compatible devices that don’t even offer an app. But this is down the road.
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Man there are way too many IoT standards. What's the difference between these two? How do they each compare to Matter?
An important difference between thread and zigbee/wi-fi I'm not seeing mentioned is that all thread devices automesh as long as they're not battery powered. So your light bulbs, plugs, etc all become extenders and part of a self healing mesh network. For me it works better than Zigbee for this reason.
I exclusively use ZigBee. It automeshes.
Zigbee does that too tho, right?
The wiki on zigbee says so at least
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Thread works with matter, these devices will use Matter over Thread.
Thread is a network layer thing, comparable to WiFi or Bluetooth. Matter is an application later thing, comparable to HomeKit or Google home.
Zigbee is both network and application layer.
This article has a decent overview https://www.smarthomeperfected.com/zigbee-vs-thread/
Thread is a wireless standard meant to sit next to Bluetooth and WiFi.
Matter is a home automation protocol can that be used over Thread or WiFi. Ideal Matter devices use Thread instead of WiFi because running a bunch of home devices like light bulbs or switches on your WiFi is a recipe for disaster.
Matter is important because it provides native comparability among different platforms.
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I am pretty happy with zigbee so far. Is that a good thing? I haven‘t done anything with matter so far.
@[email protected] I have nothing useful to contribute, but I fucking love your username. Thank you for the smirk you gave me, have a nice evening mein Genosse 👋
I am just getting started on this journey but zigbee seems great and I like that it works fine even if the wifi goes down. I'm not sure what the drawbacks are or the benefits of Matter.
matter and thread are different things fyi…
thread uses the same wireless communication as zigbee (zigbee has other stuff on top of it), so is a low power wireless protocol
matter is the data format that devices use to communicate on top of an IP-based network like wifi or thread. it’s meant to standardise all these competing “works with google” “works with alexa” “homekit compatible”: if it works with matter, it should work with any coordinator that has matter compatibility (which all the big ones do these days)
thread will work great if the wifi is down - same as zigbee!
matter also (afaik) forces local devices: your coordinator (a homepod, alexa, etc) talks directly to the device without going through the internet. again, same as zigbee
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It's just a technological step forward. Thread was designed from the ground up as an IPv6 protocol. Honestly, this kind of move is coming later than would have been ideal, given the massive growth in IoT devices.
Yeah so far it doesn't matter because zigbee and zwave still work fine.
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me either, why do we need yet another standard?
All of the major platform holders agreed to come together and interoperate with this one. And like others said, it supports IPv6.
Still yet another standard, but it’s one that’s not controlled by a single vendor. Its setup to be more like WiFi and Bluetooth than any other standard has been in the past. IMO.
and worth noting as well that thread is only kinda another standard: it uses the same wireless communication as zigbee does
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