【Pilot Feature】Matter Bridge is available!

Is 5 channel compatible with Matter at all? Last time I read the variety of matter device types compatible with the matter platform I was quite disappointed. I don’t mean the eWeLink platform. I mean the Connectivity-Standards-Alliance (CSA) in general.

It is! I had the same device connected to the Zemismart M1 Matter hub and all 5 channels were available for control:

That is good. The devices I would most like to control with Matter are the TRV and they are not supported, but I’m not sure if that is the CSA or eWeLink. Last time I was on their website I read something like ‘thermostat’ and was left debating whether TRV are included in the thermostats group or not.

On my iHost there are two matter networks bridged.
One I called “Apple keychain” even though I have zero Apple Matter compatible devices, whilst the second has no name. How do I find out which one of the 2 is real and rename the other?
I am connected to a Home Assistant matter hub . It was previously connected to an Alexa Echo Dot but that connection was removed and I started anew.

My matter option on iHost is not working
if I click on Matter I get this message “Initializing Matter Bridge, please wait…” and it stays that way for hours. My eWeLink CUBE Version is 1.13.0

idem chez moi, “Initializing Matter Bridge, please wait…”

Check if you don’t have mute enabled in ihost

If you paired iHost using an iPhone or iPad, it will automatically store all the Matter generated credentials in Apple Keychain, Google does the same thing with Google Play Services/Thread Play Services, but unlike Apple, Google does not expose this as a Matter platform. The one without a name is Home Assistant

Thanks! That explains it. Got round to searching through the device names and comparing it to the iHost deviceID. Sometimes they match although when they do I don’t think they work. I matched a Zigbee door sensor and a Zigbee switch near my computer and neither seem to work. As the matter integrations in Home Assistant is a beta and the iHost matter is quite new I don’t know where the error is.

Suspect this is Matter carried over wifi and that matter carried over thread is a future firmware update. Pretty sure combining thread and Zigbee together in the one Silicon Labs chip they have requires software. Maybe then it will work.

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Now that you mentioned, I realized my sensors connected via Zigbee2CUBE are not updating their status as well… I’m using HomeKit so the issue is probably on the iHost side of things.

Yep, for iHost it’s Matter over Wifi/Ethernet, I don’t think they are going to change it to Matter over Thread for iHost due to the limited bandwidth that Thread has (similar to Zigbee), if they enable Thread in their chip, it’s probably to connect Thread devices to iHost.

I think they said on another thread somewhere they were going to do something more than they currently are and I have joint Zigbee/Thread on a Sonoff USB dongle E already, which has the same Silicon Labs Radio chip and there’s a silicon labs docker image to enable dual use, so I suspect we’ll end up with a thread border router. I don’t expect the list of devices will go over thread but I would not be surprised if simple stuff like ON/OFF status is replicated over the thread network. Maybe they only plan on making it a Matter Controller but that would seem a waste of a radio chip that can do both.

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Matter uses Thread for low bandwidth and low power applications only. It is designed this way, and that the Thread development goals were. If iHost is unlikely to become a Thread border router we will see in the nearest future (Q1?).

Oh yeah I think iHost could easily become a Thread Border Router, something similar was already done with Home Assistant’s Sky Connect… What I meant is that I don’t think devices connected to iHost will be exposed to Matter using Thread, but only the other way around, where you could connect Thread devices to iHost

Actually, that is not as easy as people expected. It requires different firmware for multi-protocol and even for Skyconnect with HA, the feature is not stable and is not recommended by HA official.

Some matter bridge adopts similar solutions using the silab chip and they are buggy too.

TBR doesn’t really need to be built-in for iHost, Matter controller can discover TBRs in your LAN from other vendors too in ideal conditions.

While connecting thread devices is another thing, it means iHost must act as a HomeKit controller (some thread devices are HK exclusive) or Matter Controller, which sounds like a long-term plan

Where does Home Assistant not recommend their own SkyConnect? I haven’t read that said and I did plenty of reading before I’ve put dual Zigbee/thread on a Sonoff Dongle E and haven’t noticed the bugs, although I only have Zigbee stuff currently. I only saw early issues and then auto-discovery not working. For me the main bug actually seems to be trying to use it as only openthread, where I can’t connect to it. I was intending to use one dongle for Zigbee and one for Thread.

I mean using it via multiprotocol - Thread/Zigbee :wink:

It needs to send data in the same channel, the performance is not guaranteed and it is buggy. I know it because I am using it lol. Sometimes my zigbee network broke sometimes Thread did.

There are quite some useful tips in the pin section of their official discord.

A good practice is to put a repeater/router near the coordinator if you prefer to use multipan firmware for such dongles

Only being on their discord channel explains why I don’t find the reports before flashing the joint protocol on the Dongle E and using it for a bit (without noticing bugs).

Apple home is not working any more on 17.2.1

Hi. I want to buy a samsung smartthings station in the USA, but I don’t know if it will work in Europe. What zigbee frequency does smartthings station support US version. (2.4GHZ or 915MHz)

Apple just released the developer beta ios V17.4, and we were told lots of issue have been fixed, please have a try guys.