[HN Gopher] The Connectivity Standards Alliance Announces Zigbee...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The Connectivity Standards Alliance Announces Zigbee 4.0 and Suzi
        
       Author : paulatreides
       Score  : 110 points
       Date   : 2025-11-18 17:35 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (csa-iot.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (csa-iot.org)
        
       | krackers wrote:
       | I thought Threads was already the next generation of zigbee.
        
         | hypfer wrote:
         | The good thing is that at least for a somewhat technical crowd,
         | there is absolutely no need to buy into any of this, as there
         | have been proper solutions available since at least 2018.
         | 
         | Just buy Hue, maybe Aqara sensors, use zigbee2mqtt with Home
         | Assistant and be happy while observing the shitshow that is
         | this market from a safe distance.
        
           | gruturo wrote:
           | Oh cool it's not just me doing exactly this.
           | 
           | Sticking to pure zigbee devices with zigbee2mqtt and
           | slae.sh's excellent USB coordinator. A couple weeks ago I
           | bought a bunch of spare IKEA zigbee devices before they go
           | out of stock. Around 2030 I'll take a look if thread/matter
           | is anywhere near mature and has settled.
        
             | tomtom1337 wrote:
             | Are the ikea zigbee devices going to stop being sold?
             | Massive shame if so, they are extremely reliable and easy
             | to use.
        
               | simondotau wrote:
               | IKEA's whole smart home ecosystem is presently being
               | overhauled from Zigbee to Thread/Matter, with a product
               | availability gap in the meantime.
               | 
               | https://www.ikea.com/global/en/newsroom/retail/the-new-
               | smart...
        
               | tomtom1337 wrote:
               | Oooh, thank you for sharing! New product lineup looks
               | interesting, but I echo other concerns here about it
               | thread maybe eventually requiring internet.
        
               | darkwater wrote:
               | I just bought some spare pieces (remotes, bulbs) just in
               | case
        
               | microtonal wrote:
               | What gap though? Our local IKEA has plenty of lights,
               | smart plugs, etc. available still.
        
               | yurishimo wrote:
               | Personally, I find their contact sensors (the tall-ish
               | thin ones) to be quite unreliable. I live in a modest
               | home with plenty of zigbee devices as repeaters nearby
               | and the contact sensors often stop reporting at random.
               | I'll pop it off the door, click repair on my coordinator
               | and then hit the reset switch on the sensor; back online.
               | 
               | I like them because they can use rechargeable AAA
               | batteries but if I still have to touch them every few
               | weeks to repair, I'd rather switch to a different brand
               | that is more reliable and uses less ideal battery
               | formats.
               | 
               | That said, the newish Inspelling plugs in the EU market
               | are fantastic. They report reliably, can handle larger
               | loads, and cost about EUR10. For that price, it's hard to
               | complain that they are a bit larger than other options.
        
             | andrepd wrote:
             | Side question but where would one learn how to do this that
             | way? Any guides, reddit? The home automation market seems
             | such a mess every time I check it out.
        
               | knob wrote:
               | Feed that comment into an ai (claude suggested). Let it
               | know what you have, and just work out a "numbered list
               | roadmap". Love ais for that!
        
               | microtonal wrote:
               | Easiest way is to put HAOS (Home Assistant OS) on a
               | Raspberry Pi, Home Assistant Green, or some NUC:
               | 
               | https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/
               | 
               | Then get a coordinator recommended for zigbee2mqtt:
               | 
               | https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/guide/adapters/
               | 
               | Then install and start the following add-ons in Home
               | Assistant:
               | 
               | - Mosquitto - zigbee2mqtt: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/gui
               | de/installation/03_ha_addon.ht... - MQTT
               | 
               | And that's pretty much it, you can add devices through
               | the MQTT add-on page. They will also become available as
               | entities in the rest of Home Assistant, and you can make
               | graphs, dashboards, actions, etc.
               | 
               | You can also run + install zigbee2mqtt and Mosquitto on a
               | Linux machine, but HAOS give you more of an integrated
               | solution with dashboards, graphs, backups, cloud access,
               | etc.
        
           | lawn wrote:
           | > Just buy Hue, maybe Aqara sensors, use zigbee2mqtt with
           | Home Assistant and be happy while observing the shitshow that
           | is this market from a safe distance.
           | 
           | The only worry is if manufacturers stop developing Zigbee
           | products. Ikea for example made cheap and good Zigbee devices
           | but they've said they're moving away from Zigbee.
        
         | brabel wrote:
         | I hope Zigbee stays. It's widely used and works really well.
         | Matter may be even better but it also makes it really hard for
         | manufacturers to actually make products that can be sold
         | cheaply. Zigbee is just good enough and I believe the push to
         | replace it has ulterior motives.
        
           | stavros wrote:
           | Yeah, same. Zigbee hits the sweet spot of offline and just
           | interoperable enough. Matter has added so many features that
           | I might as well just use WiFi devices, and it doesn't sound
           | like the consortium has the customer's best interests in
           | mind.
        
           | microtonal wrote:
           | Yeah, I can just not wrap my brain around the Thread and
           | Matter push. Zigbee works great, devices are affordable,
           | there are many devices out there already. Also people who
           | already have Zigbee will have to build an additional Thread
           | mesh. This all seems so pointless unless there is another
           | motive.
        
           | willis936 wrote:
           | Zigbee is indeed good enough. The issue is that it solves the
           | problem well enough and doesn't allow for maximizing how much
           | customers are milked for. So customers will always choose
           | Zigbee over any other option that also solves the problem
           | plus some useless features, less control, and increased
           | security surface area.
           | 
           | There is a very clear signal that is easy to pick up: either
           | you support zigbee in your IoT device or you are trying to
           | undermine the customer. No customer wants to be undermined.
           | This should make Zigbee support a very easy choice for
           | companies operating in a competitive space. Simply succeeding
           | in the market should be enough and if it isn't that is the
           | company's existential challenge.
        
             | amluto wrote:
             | IMO Thread has one major benefit over Zigbee: the Thread
             | mesh can extend over Ethernet (via TREL). Zigbee ought to
             | be able to do this too, but I'm not aware of anyone
             | actually doing it.
             | 
             | There are a couple of in-progress implementations of Zigbee
             | on a regular computer using Thread radios and the Thread
             | RCP protocol. Maybe one of them will add the ability to use
             | multiple radios.
        
         | sebazzz wrote:
         | More power usage though.
        
         | hobofan wrote:
         | > Threads
         | 
         | You mean "Thread"? Or "Matter over Thread", which some vendors
         | also just call "Matter" (which technically can also stand on
         | it's own, but in many cases implies a Thread requirement). I'm
         | wondering if that muddiness in bad communication will be a
         | significant factor in hindering consumer adoption.
        
           | codeflo wrote:
           | "Matter" can in practice also mean "Matter over Wi-Fi", and
           | lots of vendors use it that way.
        
             | yuumei wrote:
             | That's my issue with it: iot devices shouldn't have access
             | to the internet by default. With Matter it's possible. No
             | one is going to create outbound firewall rules for these
             | things.
        
               | microtonal wrote:
               | I think it's only a matter of time before it's the same
               | for Thread + Matter. Currently they get an ULA IPv6
               | address on (most?) border routers and you can ping the
               | devices on the local network. It will be too attractive
               | extend the standard to permit phoning home for 'analytics
               | to improve the product' (I don't think this is possible
               | yet with the current standard? But hard to tell.).
        
       | samoit wrote:
       | I hope Matter becomes the "the facto" standard... now we have
       | several more "standars"
        
         | hobofan wrote:
         | > the facto *de facto
         | 
         | Any reason you prefer Matter rather than Zigbee? Zigbee has
         | been a thing far longer than Matter, so I don't think the "one
         | more standard" criticism is valid here.
        
           | samoit wrote:
           | It is supposedly an open source standard that do not requires
           | internet connection to work, and can use regular wifi
           | (2,4ghz) networks as a means to connect devices so you do not
           | need to buy a hub for them. You can create your own hub with
           | a mini pc for instance with a regular wifi card. No need for
           | specific hardware
        
             | gunalx wrote:
             | All of this can be done with ZigBee. It is open and local
             | mesh over 2.4ghz.
        
             | diffeomorphism wrote:
             | For matter over thread you do need a hub and you need more
             | certifications for matter, so for manufacturers it is less
             | open.
             | 
             | The standardization is a plus though.
        
             | StopDisinfo910 wrote:
             | I mean you can already do exactly that with zigbee after
             | buying a zigbee usb connector which are extremely cheap.
             | 
             | I know because that's what I have been doing for the past
             | five years.
             | 
             | But to be fair my setup is now mostly IKEA so I guess I
             | could go back to a bridge and stop having to maintain my
             | stuff at some point.
        
             | microtonal wrote:
             | _No need for specific hardware_
             | 
             | Meet zigbee2mqtt and ZHA. You only need a cheap USB adapter
             | as a Zigbee coordinator and you are ready to go.
        
         | Koffiepoeder wrote:
         | What I really don't like about thread/matter is that it is
         | becoming the de-facto standard that thread border routers are
         | connected to the internet.
         | 
         | This will in time result in IoT devices that actually mandate
         | this connection (it was already stipulated in a recent version
         | of the protocol). The end result will be that a new protocol
         | was created, but rather than devices being able to run on their
         | own, we end up with beds in heating mode, ie. the garbage we
         | were trying to avoid in the first place.
         | 
         | So for me, zigbee it is!
        
           | dwaite wrote:
           | A lot of zigbee infrastructure also expect an internet
           | connection.
           | 
           | These border routers also double as admins, and people want
           | their smart home stuff to be available while they are outside
           | their home network.
           | 
           | Thread devices can mandate internet connectivity the same way
           | Wifi devices can.
           | 
           | Matter defines profiles and does certification that says your
           | light bulbs cannot require an internet connection. The admin
           | your water leak detector connects into can (and arguably
           | should) alert you even when you are away from home, but the
           | leak detector _itself_ cannot do that and be certified.
        
             | moogly wrote:
             | > A lot of zigbee infrastructure also expect an internet
             | connection.
             | 
             | Like what. I have several hundred zigbee devices of almost
             | all category you can think of, and I have never come across
             | such a requirement. I don't understand how that would even
             | work.
        
       | mcny wrote:
       | Linked on the same page is the announcement for matter 1.5
       | 
       | In Case you missed it, https://csa-
       | iot.org/newsroom/matter-1-5-introduces-cameras-c...
       | 
       | > Matter 1.5 introduces one of the most anticipated additions to
       | the specification: cameras. Developers can now build and certify
       | cameras that interoperate directly with Matter-enabled
       | ecosystems, without the need for custom APIs or integrations.
       | 
       | > Matter cameras support live video and audio streaming using
       | established WebRTC technology, enabling two-way communication and
       | both local and remote access via standard STUN and TURN
       | protocols. The specification also defines support for multi-
       | stream configurations, pan-tilt-zoom controls, detection and
       | privacy zones, and flexible storage options, including continuous
       | or event-based recording to local or cloud destinations.
       | 
       | You might as well put a pause on any new IP camera purchase for
       | now until these hit the market.
        
         | jauntywundrkind wrote:
         | I have to say that the Matter Cast standard sounded good, but
         | ended up being an abomination, imo. Instead of ther being a
         | boradly available platform for casting, my crude understanding
         | is that to have Matter Cast work, there has to be some out of
         | band way for an app that wants to cast to have a reciprocal app
         | available on the target device. There's nothing provided to
         | help facilitate this.
         | 
         | Where-as with DIAL and for the first decade of Google Cast, the
         | device being cast to was basically a web browser & could run
         | any url. It made it so any device could be cast to from any
         | app. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_and_Launch
         | 
         | It's been incredibly disappointing seeing Matter build a
         | standard that completely fails to offer a usable path. I really
         | want to be wrong here, but it sure seems like Matter Cast
         | requires every device to have its own unique bespoke
         | partnership & install already loaded, for everything that will
         | be able to cast to it. It standardizes some protocols for how
         | to communicate, but there's such an anti-standard vendor-
         | controlled limited anti-ecosystem basis.
         | 
         | I really really want Matter to be a good better world. I hope
         | Matter Cameras can bring some unity to streaming camera
         | systems. But man I can not see how Matter Cast could be worse
         | designed, more hostile to the freedom to cast that we've
         | enjoyed, and I really worry for this ecosystem as a whole if
         | this is what Matter is willing to ship.
         | 
         | I'd also really like to see affirmations that Matter is usable
         | sans any big network, sans Google Apple and whomever else. That
         | it really is something we can run ourselves. But I haven't seen
         | validation that Matter really is as liberatory as it's
         | promises, haven't seen evidence that folks really can undo the
         | Internet of Shit damage with Matter. I hope it's just all us
         | being extremely slow on the uptake, but I have heard just so
         | little about running our own provisioning/control networks on
         | Matter. I want so much to believe but my vibe is that we've
         | been rug pulled again.
        
           | nona wrote:
           | > I'd also really like to see affirmations that Matter is
           | usable sans any big network, sans Google Apple and whomever
           | else. That it really is something we can run ourselves.
           | 
           | I'm using Matter (over Thread, mostly) with Home Assistant -
           | in addition to using it with Apple HomeKit, but I could have
           | done it exclusively HA. My devices get an IPv6 ULA from the
           | border router, HA can directly talk to them without any
           | internet or cloud involved. Does this qualify?
           | 
           | It's true that certain non-standardized features are only
           | available through "extensions" ie. the device vendor app. But
           | both Thread and Matter get new revisions, and the devices get
           | firmware updates in a standard way (again, installable via
           | Home Assistant) to take advantage of new features and
           | stability updates. All of this has gotten better with time.
           | 
           | But the best thing about Matter is that I'm not locked into a
           | specific ecosystem or dependent on an app from the device
           | vendor. So, in my view it has been a slow start but with
           | steady improvement. And the right direction IMHO.
        
       | humanfromearth9 wrote:
       | https://xkcd.com/927
        
       | whitehexagon wrote:
       | No thanks. Quite happy with my ConBee II and small collection of
       | open hackable ZigBee devices thanks.
       | 
       | Why would I want yet-another-standard with self-updating devices,
       | using more power (strong cryptography), and closed to certified
       | devices only.
       | 
       | And Suzi sounds like it is going to stomp all over Lora? Hard to
       | tell from that marketing fluff.
        
         | Spivak wrote:
         | Yeah this all just seems objectively worse for end users, like
         | me, who are spoiled with cheap reliable and completely isolated
         | from the internet devices.
        
       | not_that_d wrote:
       | I don't understand people criticizing this. Didn't they read the
       | article? The new Suzi stuff doesn't want to replace Zigbee, and
       | the new zigbee version is backwards compatible.
       | 
       | What is the pain there?
        
         | retSava wrote:
         | I would assume, yet _another_ standard. There are a bunch of
         | them, and product builders are taking a long long time to
         | properly implement, and often buggy. And they often result in
         | the consumer need to buy yet another gateway/router, and learn
         | the ins/outs and quirks of another protocol that won't work
         | properly in years, all the while two new competing standards
         | have been introduced. An example - how long has Matter existed?
         | Yet, it hasn't had a profile for smart plugs with energy
         | monitoring (eg the 12$ IKEA one). Such a basic use case...
         | 
         | And all this so Samsung et al can siphon off more user data and
         | show more ads.
         | 
         | I fully understand the consumer viewpoint.
         | 
         | But, it's great news imo with sub-GHz (Suzi)!
        
           | tzs wrote:
           | > An example - how long has Matter existed? Yet, it hasn't
           | had a profile for smart plugs with energy monitoring (eg the
           | 12$ IKEA one). Such a basic use case...
           | 
           | That was added with version 1.3 of Matter, released in the
           | middle of this year. You just need to wait for your smart
           | home ecosystem to support it and for IKEA to release a
           | firmware update.
           | 
           | As far as ecosystems go, Home Assistant (HA) fully supports
           | it, as does Samsung SmartThings. Google has a public beta,
           | from what I've read. Amazon and Apple are in the on the way
           | stage.
           | 
           | As far as device goes, all my energy monitoring smart plugs
           | are Tp-link Tapo, and they have been quick to update
           | firmware. I'm using several Tp-Link Tapo P110M Matter smart
           | plugs [1] and a Tapo P316M Matter smart power strip [2] with
           | HA.
           | 
           | The P316M, purchased in the middle of October, came with
           | firmware that supported Matter 1.3 out of the box. I simply
           | added it to HA using the "Add device" button on the HA screen
           | and it worked.
           | 
           | The P110Ms, purchased at the start of this month, came with
           | older firmware so they did not show energy use out of the box
           | in HA. A quick trip to the Tapo app to add them to it during
           | which it checks for and installs the latest firmware, brought
           | them up to the latest firmware. After that the energy
           | monitoring information showed up in HA.
           | 
           | [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DKG52WQ4
           | 
           | [2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F5LNYTR7
        
       | indolering wrote:
       | Any particular advantage to Suzi over Thread? Why didn't they
       | adopt an IP based standard that is interoperable with ... all
       | major networks since ~1995 (if not before)?
        
         | petre wrote:
         | Multiple reasons like not enough v4 IPs, devices being able to
         | sleep most of the time to conserve power, security cameras and
         | IoT devices getting hacked and faling prey to by botnet
         | operators etc.
        
           | tom_alexander wrote:
           | > not enough v4 IPs
           | 
           | No one is giving their IoT devices public IPv4 addresses.
           | They would be behind a NAT. RFC 1918 provides 17,891,322
           | usable IP addresses for each private network. If we want to
           | be a little more adventurous, RFC 6598 provides an additional
           | 4,194,302 usable addresses and 240.0.0.0/4 is another
           | 268,435,454 usable addresses "reserved for future use" since
           | 1989, but still sitting unused so we can use them as internal
           | addresses inside a NAT anyway (for example, AWS uses this
           | range internally).
           | 
           | Show me a network that is using all 290,521,078 addresses and
           | I'll show you a network managed by a team of network
           | engineers who can just set up IPv6.
        
             | petre wrote:
             | You still have to manage those and assign them through DHCP
             | every time the device wakes up and turns the radio on.
             | Maybe WiFi 7 will address that with the low power mode?
             | Also, I don't want a 100 sensor mesh network on my LAN.
             | That's why Thread uses a IPv6 6LoWPAN. One should use that
             | if they want to bridge to IP.
        
           | microtonal wrote:
           | Thread uses IPv6.
        
             | petre wrote:
             | Exactly, over over IEEE 802.15.4. Easy to bridge to IP
             | using the appropriate border router or whatever they are
             | called.
        
           | indolering wrote:
           | Don't use IPv4 and NAT < firewall.
           | 
           | Why would IP based routing be inherently more power hungry?
        
       | sashahilton wrote:
       | All these new standards looking to become the successor to
       | WiFi/Zigbee IoT devices, yet every single one makes the same
       | mistake - they think that because they find ways to force
       | certification, take away end user control and extract licensing
       | fees, that they're somehow going to convince people to buy it as
       | the next big thing.
       | 
       | I was cautiously optimistic when Matter/Thread was in its early
       | days, but predictably as with most of these industry backed
       | standards it's turned into another pay to play walled garden. The
       | CSA seems to be particularly bad at this.
       | 
       | Cant wait to see in subsequent years all the additional e-waste
       | when manufacturers consider devices obsolete, and no one can
       | repurpose them because of Matter spec mandating secure boot.
        
         | andsoitis wrote:
         | To succeed, consumers need to be able to rely on standards
         | conformance.
         | 
         | Certification is an obvious way and that costs money.
         | 
         | Is there a way without certification that results in high
         | conformance that consumers can rely on?
        
           | EvanAnderson wrote:
           | Certification is desirable to me, so long as it doesn't
           | mandate taking away the freedom of the owners of devices for
           | local control and the ability to install whatever software
           | they want on those devices.
           | 
           | I had no idea that Matter/Thread mandates secure boot.
           | Presumably that's secure boot without end user freedom to
           | load their own keys. That's no good.
        
           | sashahilton wrote:
           | The standards side of things is true, however this can be
           | largely solved by providing a reference implementation, given
           | that no device manufacturer is going to implement the stack
           | from scratch. Automated testing of firmware would also work.
           | As for high conformance... WiFi and BT devices manage to work
           | well enough by simply buying a tested chipset and building on
           | that, no external testing/fees necessary.
           | 
           | I understand the certification if a manufacturer wants to
           | sell a product commercially as 'Matter Certified'. For
           | hobbyists or smaller players, pulling the reference
           | implementation, loading it onto a cheap MCU, and calling it
           | 'Works with Matter' would suffice.
           | 
           | As it stands, the latter isn't an option, because of the
           | codesigning they've shoehorned into the spec. And for all the
           | noise made about security, once connected to the hub the
           | manufacturer can run whatever they like on it and send data
           | back to their servers with very little visibility to the
           | user.
           | 
           | Thread is arguably the interesting part for low power
           | devices, and doesn't force certification. Matter is little
           | more than a protocol spec, at the tradeoff of locked down
           | devices and annual fees. For Matter over WiFi, I can't see
           | any point whatsoever in using it. And for the costs of Doing
           | Matter/Thread certification most smaller hardware startups
           | will balk at the hundreds of thousands required to do so, and
           | stick with WiFi/BT/Zigbee/Thread + roll their own
           | protocol/app.
        
             | doug_durham wrote:
             | Having been in the business of creating standards compliant
             | equipment in the past, the problem is not as simple as you
             | state. You can provide all of the reference implementations
             | you want and you still will get variances.
             | 
             | The state-of-the-art solution is to put a bunch of people
             | on planes and burn a bunch of jet fuel to attend a "test
             | fest". You can't issue interoperability until you do this.
             | This costs money that needs to be paid by someone.
        
           | naasking wrote:
           | > Is there a way without certification that results in high
           | conformance that consumers can rely on?
           | 
           | Open source a reference implementation and a conformance test
           | suite. Open, transparent, and low cost. Also, don't lock out
           | devices that aren't blessed.
        
             | intrasight wrote:
             | Why not have it be like the law profession? 100% open
             | source with licensing.
        
         | ajross wrote:
         | FWIW, the "Suzi" thing they're talking about seems like an
         | attempt to compete with LoRa, which while technically an open
         | standard is entirely dominated by Semtech.
         | 
         | It's not clear to me why the manufacturers aren't just making
         | LoRa radios. This feels like an xkcd 927 situation to me.
        
         | surajrmal wrote:
         | The model seems to work. Is there precedent for the alternative
         | working out well?
        
           | EvanAnderson wrote:
           | Working well for device manufacturers who want users to
           | forklift out gear every few years?
           | 
           | I have been avoiding "IoT" in my home because I want stable
           | 20+ year lifetimes for protocols and standards. I want to
           | know that the outlets I hard-wire today will be controllable
           | with whatever software I choose in 5, 10, 15 years. I want my
           | thermostat to continue to have all its "smart" features for
           | the lifetime of my HVAC system. I don't want separate "apps"
           | for my washer, dishwasher, automatic water shut off, etc. I
           | don't want Internet connectivity to servers that may be
           | turned off at a manufacturer's whim to gatekeep features (or
           | worse, basic functionality). The market is dysfunctional.
        
             | simonjgreen wrote:
             | You're in luck! That's Zigbee.
             | 
             | (Not IoT)
        
           | hamdingers wrote:
           | Does a device that provides an interface via a HTTP server
           | need to pass any kind of TCP or HTTP certification?
           | 
           | Maybe I'm making some category error here but I can think of
           | dozens of protocols that do not require certification.
        
             | thequux wrote:
             | As much as I dislike mandatory certification, I can
             | understand the need for it in wireless battery powered
             | devices: a malfunctioning decide can talk the battery life
             | if everything within range, and most consumers aren't
             | equipped to realize that this is happening much less
             | identify the device that's causing the problem
             | 
             | Perhaps the solution is to make the spec open but make
             | using the trademark contingent on certification (much like
             | USB, for example)
        
       | eisa01 wrote:
       | So this will compete with Z-wave, that already operate in the
       | 800-900 MHz space?
       | 
       | It's very confusing with a new Zigbee standard when I thought it
       | was being replaced with Thread
        
         | microtonal wrote:
         | _It 's very confusing with a new Zigbee standard when I thought
         | it was being replaced with Thread_
         | 
         | And from the same organization that co-designed and promotes
         | Matter.
         | 
         | Personally, I'm very happy that Zigbee continues to be
         | developed. I am not very enthusiastic about everything being IP
         | addressable (even if it is just ULA) and the convoluted Thread
         | flow where a bunch of border routers require you to initiate
         | the pairing with a phone over BLE to hand it over to the
         | router. I have an Eve Energy Thread + Matter plug and it
         | requires many takes to pair it correctly. Most Zigbee devices
         | are just a matter of permitting join on your coordinator and
         | holding/pressing the pairing button on the device.
         | 
         | I wish that Apple and Google would just add a Zigbee
         | coordinator (or just leave home automation to others) and put
         | some effort into supporting a wide variety of devices rather
         | than trying to disrupt a perfectly working standard. They often
         | cannot even bother implementing the latest Matter spec timely.
        
           | windexh8er wrote:
           | As someone who's run (and continues to run) both ZWave and
           | Zigbee networks for over 10 years I find the direction of
           | Zigbee rather frustrating. They used to be the antithesis of
           | Zwave with it's frustrating "licensing" and now seems to be
           | as though they're towing that line. Most likely because they
           | got in bed with Google, Apple and the garbage that is Matter.
        
             | willseth wrote:
             | What's wrong with Matter?
        
               | windexh8er wrote:
               | It didn't solve any of the issues it proclaimed to. And,
               | if you look across open platforms (e.g. HomeAssistant) it
               | has, comparatively, low uptake on available integrations
               | because Matter is a vehicle for proclaimed interop by
               | walled garden experts (e.g. Apple, Google, etc).
        
               | tzs wrote:
               | Could you be more specific?
               | 
               | I've got several Matter smart plugs and a couple Matter
               | smart bulbs.
               | 
               | They all were quick and easy to set up with their first
               | Matter controller (an RPi4 running Home Assistant or an
               | iPad with Apple Home), and quick and easy to add to
               | whichever controller I didn't use as the first
               | controller.
               | 
               | They all worked then without requiring me to get their
               | manufacturer's proprietary app or make an account or
               | anything like that.
               | 
               | Some needed a firmware update to support Matter 1.3, and
               | so I had to use the manufacturer's app for that. Some
               | also have proprietary functions and options (for example
               | one of bulbs supports some kind of presence detection if
               | you have at least two of those bulbs in the same room) so
               | I might get the manufacturers app if I decide I want to
               | use those functions.
               | 
               | Adding them to the manufacturer's app does not interfere
               | with their use as Matter devices so if I do decide I want
               | to use some of the proprietary stuff it doesn't break
               | things.
        
           | MrBuddyCasino wrote:
           | Pairing worked flawlessly with my Tado X thermostats, to add
           | another anecdotal data point.
        
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