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by cassianoleal
23 days ago
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It's also a bit of a trap. Many devices "work with Matter" but either they don't really until a future firmware update, and even then, a lot of them have certain features locked into the vendor app. There's also complications around networking. Matter over WiFi works great if your networking gear can withstand potentially hundreds of devices connected. Matter over Thread seem to work under specific conditions, but I still haven't been able to pair the first device. There's also potential issues around device certification. All in all, Zigbee is a more reliable platform for the moment IMO, even though I have some issues with it as well. |
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I get all of the features I think I'd want out of something like a light bulb or a wall switch that just responds to commands and reports status. :)
None of my stuff uses Thread yet. I'm cheap, so I tend to buy home automation gear at the very low end of the market and Thread just isn't quite there yet.
Anyway, Zigbee.
I was using Zigbee when that still mostly bare dev and demo boards, >20 years ago. It was neat then (I was using it to consolidate RS-485 serial comms between a bunch of gear mounted on different radio towers), and it's still neat today.
But in home automation, Zigbee has been problematic for me, with devices going offline and coming back according to some unseen agenda. I've gathered that "right way" to fix that is apparently to use repeater-capable devices here or there, but meh: I'd rather build a proper wifi network (with hardwired access points) than buy weird stuff I don't need, put it in places where it isn't otherwise useful, and let Zigbee form its own unsteered mesh.
It just makes more sense to me to build a single wireless network, than to build multiple wireless networks. So I built a proper-enough wifi network with some Mikrotik hardware and that's what I use.
But I still have one Zigbee device (a temperature sensor) and it's been working fine for years. I don't track the rate at which it eats coin cells as well as I could, but I probably get a little over a year out of a random Chinese cell and they don't cost much.
In terms of wireless bandwidth: I find it only sensible at this point to consider 2.4ghz to be trash. It's not worth preserving. Internet speeds (and needs) keep increasing, and that means that 2.4ghz decreases in relative usefulness for work that requires high speed data. And all of my serious devices have 5ghz radios, anyway, and have had them for a long time.
Its biggest strength is also its biggest limitation: Penetration through walls tends to be better, and that means that the band gets stuffed up with noise from the neighbors more than 5ghz does.
It seems OK to make phone calls using a Bluetooth headset at short ranges, though. And it's plenty good-enough to tell a light bulb to turn on or off, run a music streamer, or play with esp32 and pi pico projects.
So even though many others seem to despise the concept: I'm quite deliberately centered on using 2.4ghz wifi for home automation stuff. It works well. I think I reached this position rationally. :)