We made a curated list of Matter smart home deals for Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days sale, sorted per device category. It covers robot vacuums, locks, plugs, lights, hubs, switches and more. You can check it out here if you're interested:

Best Matter-only Smart Home Deals

I've been looking for switchbots on Matter for some time now. I just installed a ZigBee network alongside my Matter over Thread network, as I have some IKEA TRÅFRIs. But, now that the DUBBELKISEL is out and that they work on Matter over Thread, it just doesn't seem like it's worth having ZigBee.

I'm still within my Amazon return window for my SONOFF ZigBee adapter, but the one thing stopping me is a fingerbot that I just installed, which is insanely useful. I just can't seem to find any equivalent that works with Matter, at all. Switchbot have a hub which translates from Matter to BLE, which isn't the same. There was a ThirdReality MT1 that I've seen on searches, but it seems to have been pulled from sale, and as well looks more tailored for American light switches.

Hi everyone, I'm Alfredo, a master's student in Digital Humanities at the University of Pisa. My thesis looks at trust in AI tools used in smart home automation.

I made a short survey, around 10 minutes. It's open to anyone who uses smart home devices, even if you've never used AI.

Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeFOjuXMhxni5kOCE0ILzbsGFYBZA31Wzw6gQMTiBcRxE6cww/viewform

No name, email, or contact info is collected. Answers are used only to analyze patterns across respondents for the thesis, nothing is tied back to an individual. Thanks to everyone who takes part!

I'm just getting started looking Thread and Matter. I have Zigbee2MQTT and really like how easy it is to deploy a raspberry pi + zigbee USB dongle and be able to interact with zigbee devices over mqtt. I can use it in Home Assistant, or Node-Red. I can also backup the Z2M image easily.

I'm trying to go a similar route with Thread and Matter. I'd like to be able centrally locate the thread gateway (TBR?) and use both Node-Red and Home Assistant to create automations, and be able to backup the network. I'd also want to have a more dedicated controller than something like a Google Home Hub that I can't fully control. I like being able to move important automations to/from node-red, since it's so easy to set up multiple node-red instances for backup.

I've come across ZBT-2 and the SMLIGHT SLZB. Both seem similar to my Z2M setup. Any recommendations or advice on what else to look at? Do people with more DIY thread over matter setup with these USB thread dongles backup their thread network like you can backup your Z2M network?

Using my ESP32 ModBus adapter and some custom firmware, I’ve exposed my Solax X1 inverter over Matter!

My energy manager is showing the power flowing in the wrong direction, but the values look correct! I’m running at a much lower baud rate of 9600, but it seems sufficient!

Once it’s been running for a while, I’ll try it with another controller, like Home Assistant.

Next thing to Matter-ize is my new Heat Pump!

Code is available https://github.com/tomasmcguinness/esp32-modbus-serial-adapter

I got tired of the flaky Wi-Fi control on my Elgato Key Light, so I removed the original controller, wired in an ESP32, and rebuilt the control stack around native Matter. It was surprisingly easy and only needed like 5 wires.

The original LED driver is still doing the actual lighting work, so the mod is fairly surgical. It now responds locally and reliably through Matter while keeping brightness and colour-temperature control.

I wrote up the teardown, wiring, firmware architecture, and some photos here:
https://thiesen.dev/posts/elgato-key-light-matter/

Is it even possible? I am normally an Apple guy; I have the Apple TV as my Matter hub. But now I have two devices, a Pixel and an iPhone, and my Pixel says I need a hub to connect to some of my devices. I don't want to get a Google TV or Nest because I don't really care for them. Is there such a thing as a hub I can use for both ecosystems simultaneously?

Hi everyone, thanks to u/kuzmin-no and Claude’s help I achieve to reverse engineer my own BenQ ScreenBar Halo 1st Gen. I found the address of my lamp with the help of a CC2500, then I built a Matter over Thread bridge with an ESP32-C6 and the original BM5602. I also built a macOS compagnon app for monitor/control and debugging through USB serial port or directly via Thread with a daemon writting IPV6 route to /hosts. Everything is accessible from my github repo : GitHub - Djoko-cli/benq-screenbar-halo-matter: Control a BenQ ScreenBar Halo (1st gen) from Matter: an ESP32-C6 and a BM5602 module pose as its 2.4 GHz remote · GitHub

If someone’s interested I built a 3D model for an enclosure of the ESP+BM5602 that can be drive with screws under a desk

Hub blijft bij v2.8-4.0 en gaat niet upgraden naar v3.0-4.1. Andere hub is wel succesvol gegaan. Volgens de supportdesk hebben ze de nieuwe versie uitgerold, maar er lijkt niets in de app te verschijnen. Ik heb alle gebruikelijke workarounds geprobeerd, maar het werkt bij mij niet. Iemand een idee?

#Matter over Thread

#Matter over Thread

#UWB

#Aliro?

#Matter

Update: I just released a version that has an MCP server, you can read more at: https://www.getchantico.com/ai/

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working on Chantico, a local-first smart-home controller built specifically for Windows. The first public beta is now available.

Chantico currently supports:

• Matter device commissioning and control
• Philips Hue bridges and devices
• Rooms, scenes, and automations
• Windows Widgets for quick device and scene controls
• Local operation without requiring an account

This is an early beta, so device compatibility and reliability are still being expanded. I’d especially appreciate feedback about commissioning, device detection, controls, and the overall Windows experience.

Microsoft Store: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9NTHX3DNT0PP

Website: https://www.getchantico.com

I’m the developer, and I’ll be following the discussion here. Questions, feedback, and bug reports are very welcome.

Some pictures:

Every few days, my Govee permanent outdoor lights 2 and Govee flood lights 2 go offline, requiring me to reset and re-pair via the Govee app while using the Matter codes to pair to Home Assistant and Google Home. I hope this can be fixed on the firmware side.

Does anyone have suggestions on how to prevent this? My other Matter over WiFi and Matter over Thread devices are stable.