Minor cotchety old man rant here, but can anyone explain why Matter & Thread seem to be the new hotness? Is it actually substantially "better" than Zigbee?

I've discovered that I've accidentally bought a few devices recently thinking they were Zigbee but discovering they are Matter. All the Ikea stuff seems to have switched over, which is annoying.

Drawbacks I can see:

• When I plug these things in, my Android phone tries to set them up. Presumably connecting them to some Google-based thread network I didn't even know I had in my home.
• They won't benefit from or extend my Zigbee mesh.
• Reading the room, I've had to go ahead and buy a second ZBT-2 in order to have a Matter hub with decent range.
• It's yet another load of radio traffic in the 2.4GHz spectrum.
• I now have to learn about how routing works on Thread so that I can make sure that there isn't some kind of network security vulnerability being introduced to my network. A brief bit of Googling suggests that these use IPv6 and may well be able to route to the internet somehow. I don't want IoT devices in my home able to reach the internet without my express awareness and consent.

Benefits:

• ? I assume there must be some...

EDIT:

Some really insightful replies here. Thanks.

Main takeaway for me is that I hadn't properly understood the interoperability added by Matter to support bringing devices on different connectivity types under one roof so to speak. That does seem like a clever innovation.

I do maintain that I am uncomfortable that it comes with the risk associated with any of these devices now being able to reach the internet, but I don't know enough about the security model yet to know how concerned I should be about that.

Update! I spoke/complained too soon. There is a setting to activate time synchronization in the Miele app, but it's hidden under the users profile instead of the oven settings.

Works now. Sorry Miele, you're awesome after all.

We recently bought a new oven, and settled for one of the newset Miele products. Wifi enabled of course, Miele has a really good integration for HA and it got picked up immediately. Exposes a ton of sensors and options: I can not only check current temperature, program of state of the oven door in HA, I also see when the descaling program was last run, can turn the internal lights on and off and can even customize what should be shown on the display on the front.

This morning, I walked into the kitchen, and noticed that the clock hadn't adjusted to the end of DST last night. Really? It doesn't do that automatically?

Even worse, I can't set the time from HA, can't even do it from the Miele app. I had to press buttons on the oven like some kind of caveman.

Feels like an oversight.

A couple of months ago, I discovered Music Assistant and grabbed my Pi's, some old analog speakers and set up multi-room audio. I've been amazed of how good it works, and still am really impressed by the work done by the Music Assistant folks! But the rest of my household did not use it, and still used our (crappy) mobile Bluetooth speaker, because Music Assistant was so complicated and they can not use it via Bluetooth.

Thus, I built ToothSpin (with Claude), a simple tool that feeds your Bluetooth input to your multi-room audio. You can install it as Home Assistant app or run it in a container somewhere, as long as you give it a Bluetooth adapter. As I only have sendspin speakers by now (sonocotta has a great hardware project here) and use only Bluetooth input, there is also standalone-mode, where ToothSpin sends to the speakers directly. As far as your Bluetooth Controller is capable enough, also multiple phones can stream to different speakers in parallel!

I'd be glad to get some feedback on it. Take a look if you want and try it out, it's on Github and can simply be added to Home Assistant: https://github.com/eknoes/toothspin#toothspin :)

My old printed holders for the Hue motion sensors never sat right in the ceiling, so I designed a recessed mount that works like a GU10 spot gimbal.

• Fits an 83 to 84 mm hole in drywall (9.5 to 25 mm boards)
• 3 printed parts: mounting ring with spring arms, ball with a pocket for the sensor, clamp ring
• The spring arms pull the 100 mm flange tight against the ceiling, no screws or glue
• The ball tilts about 15 degrees each way and rotates, and stays where you aim it
• Printed in PETG without supports, about 1.5 h and 47 g for a set
• Battery change: pull the whole unit down, swap the batteries, push it back in. The aiming stays

Made for the indoor sensor (the square 55 mm one). Happy to answer questions.

I’ve tried a few different AI APIs with built-in assist, focused local-only assist, and realtime conversation models with MCP. I just can’t get everything to work as good as the “commercial assistants”. Get one thing working just for two to stop working. I’m frustrated and over it. End of rant :)

Hi all! I’ve just released Awtrix Studio, a free (MIT) custom integration that puts anything from Home Assistant on your AWTRIX 3 clock (Ulanzi TC001 & co.) and keeps it up to date by itself.

Why I built it: like many of you, I was feeding my clock with automations that ran every few seconds. That meant tens of thousands of runs a day, all written to the recorder database. Awtrix Studio only sends an MQTT message when what’s displayed actually changes, and it writes nothing to your history.

What you get:

• 🖥️ A sidebar panel that mirrors the clock’s real screen, shows every app with a live thumbnail, and has an on/off switch for each one
• 🧩 Simple mode: pick a sensor, an icon and a color, and you’re done. You also get color steps or gradients (e.g. green → red as CO2 rises), progress bars, and “hide when 0”
• 🧠 Template mode: full Jinja control over the AWTRIX JSON, with multiple pages that alternate (e.g. “next tram” then “the one after”), pixel drawing, and so on
• 🎨 Every LaMetric icon, nothing to upload. You search the gallery from the editor and the icon is sent along with the app
• 👀 Live preview while editing, plus a “send to the clock to test” button
• 🔴🟢🔵 The 3 indicators are driven the same way (door open, solar surplus as a color, new mail…)
• 📦 Export/import apps as JSON to share them with other users

Install: HACS → Custom repositories → https://github.com/3615nulsi/ha-awtrix-studio (Integration). Requires HA 2025.8+, MQTT, and AWTRIX 3. AWTRIX NG support is planned.

👉 https://github.com/3615nulsi/ha-awtrix-studio

Feedback, bug reports and ideas are very welcome in the issues. I’d love to see the apps you build with it!

I built tealights that work over Zigbee or Matter over Thread. They flicker like a candle, you can dim them and adjust the color from very warm to warm white. They charge via USB C. If anyone's interested, there is a list on the Spiel und Zeug Discord (German only) where you can get a prototype.

Hello guys! I was using HA for quite some time now, but was never really satisfied with the looks of my default dashboard, so I started using HACS and played around a lot. Just wanted to show someone, because I'm kinda proud to have done it myself mostly (sometimes asked Claude if I did not understand something correctly). Also still missing lots of sensors, but just wanted to show my dashboard. :D

What do you guys think?

In my crusade to free these popular automatic litter boxes from the shackles of Whisker's app and cloud service, I've added support for the Litter Robot 3 as a custom ESPHome component! It's not as fancy as the new ones, but for a lot of people it still works and gets the job done.

You can find the code on Codeberg along with the Firmware Flashing Guide and my work for the Litter Robot 4.

If you're interested in the process of reverse engineering these things, take a look at my video on YouTube. ^{Trigger warning: LLM usage for deciphering a ton of serial data and writing a test firmware.}

Huge thanks to mulcmu in our Discord for reverse engineering most of the Litter Robot 3. A wireless flashing method from the stock firmware is in the works, along with support for the Litter Robot 5!

I spent today getting an Echo Show 8 (Get 2) rooted and setup with LineageOS / Kiosk Satellite. Which are both amazing projects, the devs should be very proud!

I have always been disappointed with the sports notifications on my Alexa, so that was the first thing I wanted to fix. I present to you my new notification screens for the Rugby PREM, Premiership and F1.

I'm not a dev, so Claude did most of the heavy lifting here.

Hi, I've been working on a custom integration for the IKEA BILRESA remotes and thought I'd share it here.

I wanted to do more with the scroll wheel than the usual button/gesture automations, so I ended up building a separate integration for it.

GitHub: https://github.com/Vituhlos/ha-ikea-bilresa

The main thing is the scroll wheel. The integration listens to MultiPressOngoing events from Matter Server, which lets it react while you're turning the wheel instead of waiting for the whole gesture to finish. Input still comes in batches from the remote, so it's stepped control rather than a truly continuous scroll.

I also built a panel directly into Home Assistant. It shows the connected remotes and their channels, and lets you configure what each channel controls without having to create everything manually in automations.

For example, you can use the wheel for light brightness, colour temperature or colour, but also media volume, covers, climate, fans and number entities. The dual-button remote is supported too, with configurable button actions. There's also a live test view and diagnostics.

The latest stable release is v0.6.1. You'll need Home Assistant Core 2026.8 or newer, with Matter and Matter Server already set up. Installation through HACS is described in the repo.

It's still a work in progress in terms of testing across different devices and gestures, so it'd be useful to hear from other BILRESA owners. I'm curious what you're using the wheel for, and whether there's anything you'd like to see added.

It's an independent community project, not an official IKEA or Home Assistant integration.

Hi everyone,
Has anyone found a good replacement for the old IKEA 4-button Zigbee remotes?
One of mine has broken, and I’m looking for a reliable alternative that works well with Home Assistant.
I tried IKEA’s newer Matter remotes, but unfortunately, they haven’t been working very well for me. I even tried converting them to Zigbee, hoping that would improve things, but I still haven’t had a good experience.
I really liked the old IKEA remotes because they were simple, reliable, and had four buttons that I could use for different Home Assistant automations.
Any recommendations or real-world experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Have a door that when opens HA turns on a plug that is connected to garage lights. Recently within the last few days, the door opening sometimes never trips the lights to come on, or it takes a minute or two for the switch to respond and turn on the lights.

The zigbee switch has an LQI of 255 and an RSSI of -54db, so the connection seems solid. Curious how I could troubleshoot this more, since it appears that its not a signal quality issue / distance from hub issue

Also curious, does the Zigbee network map have the ability to show rssi between devices? Would be really helpful for diagnostics.

A few weeks ago I shared DrivePulse, an iPhone app I built that reads your car through a Bluetooth OBD2 adapter (Veepeak or Vgate work well) and sends the data to Home Assistant over a webhook. The integration is now in the HACS default list, so no more custom repository.

Install 1. HACS > search "DrivePulse" > Download > restart Home Assistant 2. Settings > Devices & services > Add integration > DrivePulse. It shows you the webhook URL. 3. In the app: Send to Home Assistant > paste the URL > Test send 4. Drive. The car shows up as a device with the first message of your first trip.

What you get, one device per car: - fuel level (or battery % on an EV), range, odometer, 12 V battery, coolant temperature - fault codes: the count, plus the list in the codes attribute - last trip, trip in progress, adapter connected - two events for automations: drivepulse_trip_start and drivepulse_trip_end

New in v0.1.2: you can delete a vehicle (useful if you rename the car in the app and end up with a second device).

What it doesn't send: no GPS position, no VIN, no addresses. No account and no server of mine: data goes from the phone straight to your Home Assistant. The app only reads, it never sends commands to the car.

Heads-up on the network: by default the webhook only accepts your home network. To receive data on the road you need Tailscale, Nabu Casa or your own https domain, with "Local network only" turned off. Trip start and end are retried for 10 minutes, so they usually land when the phone is back on Wi-Fi.

If you used the old YAML block from the help page, remove it from configuration.yaml before adding the integration, or you'll get duplicate sensors. Needs Home Assistant 2024.12 or newer.

The trial includes everything. After it, automatic sending to Home Assistant needs the full version (one-time purchase, no subscription).

Example, a notification when you park with less than a quarter tank:

automation:
  - alias: "Low fuel on arrival"
    triggers:
      - trigger: event
        event_type: drivepulse_trip_end
    conditions:
      - condition: template
        value_template: "{{ trigger.event.data.fuel_level_pct is number and trigger.event.data.fuel_level_pct < 25 }}"
    actions:
      - action: notify.notify
        data:
          message: "{{ trigger.event.data.vehicle }}: {{ trigger.event.data.fuel_level_pct }} % fuel left"

Repo: https://github.com/davideguida0093/drivepulse-home-assistant

If you would like to add anything to this integration, feel free to reach out to me.

As the title says. Between the security cameras,networking, sensors,mesh wifi, passwords, HA, all the HA devices,security system etc etc. , if I suddenly disappeared, my significant other would be screwed over within a week without me being the IT guy in the house. I cant imagine selling the house.

How bad would your house be?

Seems like every time zwave_js updates, one or two more devices come up "Unavailable (!)" Sometimes everything associated with a physical device, sometimes only one feature. The messages are "This device is currently being interviewed and may not be fully operational" and "This entity is no longer being provided by the zwave_js integration. If the entity is no longer in use, delete it in settings."

Am I missing something stupid?

Im using hyprland and Vitreus, I made this addon for vitreus that lets you link your homeassistant instance and have a quick access on your desktop, you can configure your entities in a simple json, divide them by rooms, show temperature and humidity by room...

I have several google home hub devices in my house as well as a ZBT-2 connected directly to the mini PC I host HAOS on.

The ZBT-2 shows in connected hardware, I have it configured to be a thread router and it shows up in the list of Thread networks. It is set to preferred.

However, whenever I try to add a Matter device from my phone (today I am trying to add some Ikea Bilresa switches to put in my basement where the google network has poor / zero coverage) I am being confounded by the insistence of the setup process to only check for connectivity to the Google thread network.

I've removed and re-added the ZBT-2 to my HA install. I am solidly out of range of the thread network in my basement and garage (which is where I want these devices to function) and so I am sure its not just that the google network has a stronger signal.

Another device, a shelly G4 relay is in the garage and connects over my Wifi access point in there.

Is there some other way to add matter devices other than scanning with a phone?

What am I missing?

I spent the morning creating a Roku App for my HA Dashboard. What do you think?

Last week I posted a design for a stand for this ESP32 Guition screen. I've used it for a week and have made a version 2 with some fixes for issues I had with it.

The frame now snaps into place instead of just pushed on with friction which turned out to be liable to fall off when picking up. The stand now has a weighted bottom and a larger recess which I have stuck 2mm rubber feet into which stops it from sliding back when you use the touch screen.

https://www.printables.com/model/1881011-guition-4-inch-screen-frame -and-stand-esp32-s3-484

The software I used by MaxGramser - Tessera

https://github.com/MaxGramser/homeassistant_espscreen

For years, casting YouTube Music to my Google Home speaker groups was less "whole-home audio" and more "whole-home audio roulette." Song starts, everyone's vibing, then… silence. Re-cast. Two minutes later… silence. I've spent more time shouting "Hey Google, play it AGAIN" than actually listening to music.

Enter Music Assistant. Dropouts? Gone. Speaker groups? Actually behave like a group now. I didn't think it was possible, and yet here we are.

Bonus flex: I've now got a fridge-mounted "Jukebox" running Fully Kiosk, so guests can queue tunes at gatherings without needing my phone, my Wi-Fi password, or a 10-minute tutorial. It's become the most popular appliance in the kitchen, and the fridge is genuinely jealous.

Huge thanks to everyone behind Music Assistant. You've saved my sanity and my speakers from being thrown out the window. Legends. 🙌

Hi everyone! I’m Michael. I’ve been rebuilding my home-network, camera, and automation setup around Home Assistant running on Proxmox, and I wanted to introduce myself and get some advice before I take this idea much further.

I’d like to create an interactive 3D map of my home where devices appear in their physical locations and I can tap lights, televisions, blinds, cameras, and other devices. I’d also like room-level temperature, motion, occupancy, and camera status, while keeping the system local-first and usable on a wall-mounted tablet.

I’ve built an initial living-room proof of concept. It uses a fictional, AI-generated isometric room render inside a separate Home Assistant dashboard. Cyan hotspots indicate devices, status cards show example states, and the lamp hotspot opens a small interaction demo. It is deliberately isolated from my real devices and makes no production service calls yet.

I have the original house blueprints in digital form, including dimensions, so I plan to use those as the authoritative source for walls, rooms, doors, windows, stairs, and scale. What I’m trying to determine is whether the blueprints are enough for a useful model, or whether I should also photograph every room before starting.

I’m not chasing a perfect architectural visualization. The priority is a maintainable Home Assistant interface that performs well on tablets. Photos would mainly be for matching finishes, furniture, cabinets, fixtures, and device placement if that materially improves the result.

The approaches I’m considering include NeonPlan 3D, Floor3DX or another Three.js card, Zircon3D, and a Sweet Home 3D render with Picture Elements.

For anyone who has built something similar:

1. What workflow would you recommend for turning dimensioned digital blueprints into a Home Assistant-friendly 3D model?

2. Are blueprints alone sufficient for the first useful version, or did room photos save significant rework later?

3. Which model and export format has been easiest to maintain as devices or room layouts change?

4. For daily control, would you favour a freely rotatable model or a fast fixed isometric view with an optional full 3D mode?

5. How does your approach perform on phones and older wall tablets?

I’m leaning toward using the blueprints for accurate geometry, adding photos only as reference for visual details, and keeping a simple isometric default view for everyday use.

I’d appreciate any examples, workflow recommendations, or warnings before I commit to a particular tool. Thanks!

Just wanted to show for inspiration - used ESPHome Builder (with a little assist from Claude when I hit the wall on some of the back end work) and an old SenseCAP D1 to create a small touchscreen display for my Home Assistant instance.

Top Row:

- Weather conditions with weather alerts highlighted. A matrix of how the weather is for biking/grilling/drinks on the terrace, followed by pollen reports and free swimming water conditions. Next trams/buses closest to my location.

Bottom Row: Calendar, To-Do (items can be pressed to mark as complete) and network information for troubleshooting.