I have a question. Sonoff is releasing a new zb-Matter bridge. I’m very curious what it’s for? What’s the use of their Matter bridge? It’s impossible to connect devices from other manufacturers to any of the bridges if the bridge itself doesn’t support those devices’ functionality!!! For example, there are occupancy sensors that divide rooms into zones and determine distances to objects. There are door locks, IR remote controls, LED strips, doorbells, smoke detectors, vibration detectors, and CO2 detectors. And all of this can’t be connected to the Sonoff Matter Bridge. Only devices from other manufacturers that are Sonoff analogs can be connected, and as we see, they’re not particularly eager to implement them, to put it mildly.
I think your understanding of the SONOFF Matter Bridge might be based on older information.
From what I’ve seen in newer versions of eWeLink CUBE, support for non-SONOFF Zigbee devices has already expanded quite a bit. And the current SONOFF Matter bridge implementation is actually built on the same CUBE architecture, so its capabilities depend on what CUBE supports.
From the roadmap shared for 2026（
eWeLink CUBE 2026 — Let’s Shape What’s Next - eWeLink CUBE - eWeLink Forum）, it also looks like they plan to add support for more third-party device models. So my guess is the new Matter bridge is mainly about exposing Zigbee devices connected to the hub to ecosystems like Apple Home or Amazon Alexa locally, rather than directly supporting every device type itself.
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You’re giving the new Sonoff Matter bridge expectations it was never designed to meet. It’s a bit like complaining that a toaster can’t make soup.
A Matter bridge isn’t a universal Zigbee intake valve. It can only expose device types that Matter actually defines, and only for devices the manufacturer explicitly supports. That’s not a Sonoff limitation — that’s literally how the standard works.
So no, it won’t handle mmWave zone mapping, IR blasters, CO₂ sensors, vibration sensors, smart locks with vendor‑specific features, or any other exotic Zigbee gear.
No Matter bridge from any brand can do that.
The purpose of the new Sonoff bridge is much simpler (and far less dramatic):
Expose Sonoff’s own Zigbee devices to Matter ecosystems. Not replace Zigbee2MQTT, not support every device on AliExpress, not become a universal translator. It’s the same model used by Aqara, Hue, and Tuya: their bridge → their devices → Matter.
If someone expects it to magically support every Zigbee device ever made, the problem isn’t the bridge — it’s the assumption.
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It’s just a shame that they don’t work properly, the matter of bridges, network stability. They caused me quite a few problems because of this.
That’s fair — stability issues are a separate topic. My point was only about what Matter bridges are designed to do and what they can’t do by definition. Whether a specific bridge works well or not is another discussion.
This topic is related, the bridge can support whatever it wants, but it won’t work well with Sonoff.
Yeah, that might also be why they’re recruiting beta testers this time.
The good thing is that most of this can be improved through software updates, so stability and compatibility can keep getting better without needing new hardware. Hopefully once things are stable on the new Matter bridge, they’ll also bring those improvements to existing devices like SONOFF iHost and SONOFF ZBBridge-U.
But there are also beta testers who are not interested in it. lots of complaints about the stability of zbb u etc.
It seems my understanding of Matter was false. My understanding was that Matter was a bridge that allows devices of different brands (WiFi, ZB, etc.) to communicate with each other without any hassle. That’s how general information is provided online. It turns out that to work with Matter, you also need to install OC Cube on your home server. For casual users like me who just want to connect a device to the network and use it, Matter Bridge is just garbage—a useless thing!!! I hope I understood the purpose of Matter Bridge correctly.
Calling the Matter Bridge “garbage” just means you bought the wrong product for your needs.
If you expect a plug‑and‑play hub that magically supports every Zigbee device, that’s simply not what a Matter bridge is — and no brand offers that. Matter bridges expose supported devices to Matter protocol, nothing more. If that’s not what you need, the solution is simple: don’t buy it, and use a tool that actually fits your use case (like Z2M or ZHA), instead of blaming the device for doing exactly what it was designed to do.
All the bloggers who talk about Matter (in language I understand) describe bridges and the Matter protocol as a magic box that connects devices from other manufacturers. And frankly, I don’t understand why this isn’t true! I think the percentage of advanced users who use personal servers is negligible compared to those who don’t understand this!!! This is an extremely confusing solution!!! If you’re going to make a universal device, it should be truly universal, but it turns out to be some kind of cripple on crutches!!! Instead of increasing the number of new essential devices that absolutely everyone can use, they’re releasing yet another clone of a device that not everyone can use.
What SONOFF’s Matter bridge does right now is basically this: it allows Zigbee devices to connect to the hub and then exposes them to a Matter network. That means you can control those devices through Matter-compatible platforms like Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, or Google Home.
Before that, you could only add and control those Zigbee devices through the eWeLink App. That’s basically the purpose of a Matter bridge — it lets those devices appear not only in the eWeLink app but also in other apps that support Matter.
As for which Zigbee devices the SONOFF Matter bridge supports, supporting their own SONOFF devices is obviously expected. Support for devices from other brands is more of a company strategy decision, so whether they add those or not is ultimately up to them.
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Thank you!!! This is how all reviews should explain things. Every review talks about an all-powerful box… I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a useless thing for me.
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This new bridge would be even more interesting if SONOFF could create something similar to the Aeotec Smart Home Hub, but with Matter Bridge support. The Aeotec hub can accept external drivers to make devices from other brands compatible with the system, which is a great concept. However, it falls short because it does not support — and according to the company, is not expected to support in the near future — the Matter Bridge feature.
If SONOFF could build something similar with Matter Bridge support, it would be a real game changer.
CubeOS is a great platform, but I believe it targets a very small niche. Advanced users will likely continue using platforms like Home Assistant, while most end users prefer simple bridges such as the SONOFF ZBBridge-U. In that sense, CubeOS becomes a niche within an already niche segment, in my view.
On the other hand, releasing a new bridge that supports external drivers and also acts as a Matter Bridge would allow the development team to focus less on directly supporting third-party devices. Instead, that responsibility could be delegated to the community or even to other brands through driver development.
I’m curious what is the percentage of users that use CubeOs standalone.
I agree with that line of thinking!
It would be very complicated and almost impossible to be the same as or similar to Z2M without having a gigantic team and spending tons of money on devices from another brand! That doesn’t make much sense for a company. For example, Aqara will never do that! Tuya even less so!
I think CubeOS and iHost (CubeOS) do an excellent job of accepting things that aren’t Sonoff!
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For those already using Home Assistant, etc., they shouldn’t need to worry about MatterBridge, etc., using the newly released Zigbee antennas.
However, for advanced platform users, it would be interesting to have access to creating drivers for their devices, similar to SmartThings or Z2M, where they could create a driver, upload it to a repository, and have it added for everyone, or use it for themselves!
Now we’re running into more complex technical aspects of the Matter bridge, something that isn’t very simple to do! Especially since I imagine this new hub with a bridge needs to be certified, and being certified means it has to follow criteria and rules! And Sonoff doesn’t have all the devices; for example, it doesn’t have Cinerene doorbells, smoke detectors, gate sensors, etc.! That would create a very high level of complexity in implementing and translating third-party drivers for the bridge! That’s why SmartThings doesn’t do this! The plugin that does this for HA and Z2M has a fairly large community around it, developing and helping hard! And even then, not everything runs perfectly!
I would say it’s low-cost! However, I would say it’s promising for people who don’t want anything complex!
If it became a little more like Homey, for example, with Flows, etc., it would be interesting, and the implementation of drivers would also be very interesting! I wouldn’t say it should be a Matter Bridge at its core, but being able to create drivers and integrations with other platforms would be very interesting!
With the ability to run Node-red as an add-on that is already available.
Yes, in this case I was talking about something native! Especially since the Node-RED add-on has to be maintained, etc… For non-advanced users who want to do something a little more complicated but not too complicated, it would be ideal! Like Aqara Studio! I’ve been testing it a lot!
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Yes, I agree with you. Something like Homey yes. I understand the costs of be a matter bridge for the maximum products possible, its huge.
But there’s also other cool features that we have on other brands, like the new Switchbot hub with a chatbot to assist create automations and so on. Ewelink also should allow this kind of features in the app. Even Shelly has a small IA assistant to create automation just prompting.
Anyway, It’s time to do a step foward and bring something new with this new bridge. That would be awesome.
I think there’s a misunderstanding about what a Matter bridge actually does.
A bridge is not meant to provide AI assistants, automation builders or new app features. Its only role is to expose existing devices to the Matter ecosystem.
Features like AI‑based automation, chatbots or smart suggestions belong to the eWeLink app itself, not to the bridge hardware. Expecting the bridge to deliver these functions is like expecting a protocol adapter to behave like a full smart‑home hub.
If eWeLink/Sonoff wants to add AI or automation helpers, that would be great — but it’s a separate topic from the Matter bridge.
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