At the moment my HA set up is mostly ESPHome environmental sensors and multiple temperature sensors on Zigbee via a old ConBee II
I am looking to integrate the new Ikea air quality sensor (ALPSTUGA) which is "matter supported" and maybe more Matter enabled sensors in the future
but i am a bit confused as to what i need to do to get in the Matter and Thread stuff.
#Feel like I am confusing myself about Matter & Thread
nova gale
looking into it seems i need a hub that has matter support but there is a lot of different models with a lot of feature sets or limits to how many devices it supports
and a lot of them are expensive and not really much in the middle its either a 60$ hub or a $120+
smoky vector
At the moment my HA set up is mostly ESPHome environmental sensors and multiple ...
the new ikea stuff that says it is "matter" is actually "matter over thread" so you will need a thread boarder router. for running one on home assistant I recommend the ZBT-2 which can be used for Zigbee OR Thread, in this case you would set it up for thread.
opaque wigeon
you don't need a "hub", home assistant itself is the matter controller. You do need a "thread border router". The TBR can either be integrated into a hub or wifi access point from another vendor, or you can get a radio dongle and turn HA into the TBR.
nova gale
the new ikea stuff that says it is "matter" is actually "matter over thread" so ...
ah ok stick with the conbee ii for zigbee and use the zbt2 for thread?
nova gale
you don't need a "hub", home assistant itself is the matter controller. You do n...
ok that has cleared up a lot of confusion i was having thanks
opaque wigeon
sure. ZBT-2 is great, but most other zigbee dongles using EFR32 chips can also be used for thread with alternate firmware, and you can even use an ESP32-H2 devkit as a thread radio (they're also fun for building thread-connected sensors with esphome)
smoky vector
ah ok stick with the conbee ii for zigbee and use the zbt2 for thread?
That should work just fine yes, however something to note is that they should be at least 25cm apart (2 wavelengths at 2.4ghz)
nova gale
sure. ZBT-2 is great, but most other zigbee dongles using EFR32 chips can also ...
is the SONOFF USB Dongle Plus MG24 able to do that?
the ZBT-2 is probably what i will get but if i can get away with something cheaper ill try it first
opaque wigeon
yes that would work, you'd want to flash the "OpenThread RCP" firmware via https://dongle.sonoff.tech/sonoff-dongle-flasher/ (or i think sonoff provides a home assistant add-on for flashing firmware too?)
nova gale
ok thanks kepstin and Michael
i'll give the sonoff dongle a try
i now feel i can close this thread now