Man there are way too many IoT standards. What's the difference between these two? How do they each compare to Matter?
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
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Thread is a wireless standard meant to sit next to Bluetooth and WiFi.
Matter is a home automation protocol can that be used over Thread or WiFi. Ideal Matter devices use Thread instead of WiFi because running a bunch of home devices like light bulbs or switches on your WiFi is a recipe for disaster.
Matter is important because it provides native compatibility among different platforms.
What kind of disaster specifically? I hear everyone discouraging from using WiFi for home devices, but never understood what the actual risks are.
Dishonest question, your following comments show you clearly know the common points of these discussions.
There's no arguing that using WiFi for this purpose is an obstacle to widespread adoption and a security risk, no matter how well you yourself are handling it.
There's also the technical advantage of those IoT networks being meshed by design, whereas expanding a WiFi network with mesh functionality often carries challenges.
I may know some answers, but I don't have a full picture, and I wish to complete my understanding by learning others' perspectives and what they find most important about this choice of protocols. Thank you for sharing yours.
Let’s say your lightbulb(s) become comprised. A bad actor now has a toehold into your network.
Maybe they run a spam relay through the bulb. Maybe they attack your network by attacking the printer that hasn’t had a firmware update in years.
Point is, there’s someone with access to your network that isn’t you.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Ubiquiti/comments/1fjspoc/what_is_the_point_of_having_a_separate_devices/
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An important difference between thread and zigbee/wi-fi I'm not seeing mentioned is that all thread devices automesh in a hub/spoke model as long as they're not battery powered. So your light bulbs, plugs, etc all become extenders and part of a self healing mesh network without a single point of failure. For me it works better than Zigbee for this reason.
Zigbee does that too tho, right?
The wiki on zigbee says so at least
Pretty sure than an underlying feature of both zigbee and zwave.
They're different in their implementation. Zigbee automesh is more of a centralized router-hub model with self healing relying on routing tables. This caused significant issues for me. Thread is true automesh with all devices acting as a hub in a hub/spoke model, so there's no centralized routing table to act as a single point of failure.
I exclusively use ZigBee. It automeshes.
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Thread is a network layer thing, comparable to WiFi or Bluetooth. Matter is an application later thing, comparable to HomeKit or Google home.
Zigbee is both network and application layer.
This article has a decent overview https://www.smarthomeperfected.com/zigbee-vs-thread/
Thread works with matter, these devices will use Matter over Thread.
I am pretty happy with zigbee so far. Is that a good thing? I haven‘t done anything with matter so far.
It's just a technological step forward. Thread was designed from the ground up as an IPv6 protocol. Honestly, this kind of move is coming later than would have been ideal, given the massive growth in IoT devices.
Yeah so far it doesn't matter because zigbee and zwave still work fine.
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@arschflugkoerper@feddit.org I have nothing useful to contribute, but I fucking love your username. Thank you for the smirk you gave me, have a nice evening mein Genosse 👋
I am just getting started on this journey but zigbee seems great and I like that it works fine even if the wifi goes down. I'm not sure what the drawbacks are or the benefits of Matter.
matter and thread are different things fyi…
thread uses the same wireless communication as zigbee (zigbee has other stuff on top of it), so is a low power wireless protocol
matter is the data format that devices use to communicate on top of an IP-based network like wifi or thread. it’s meant to standardise all these competing “works with google” “works with alexa” “homekit compatible”: if it works with matter, it should work with any coordinator that has matter compatibility (which all the big ones do these days)
thread will work great if the wifi is down - same as zigbee!
matter also (afaik) forces local devices: your coordinator (a homepod, alexa, etc) talks directly to the device without going through the internet. again, same as zigbee
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Crap. I use pretty much exclusively Ikea stuff with my Home Assistant
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It makes sense. Hopefully it's more reliable than my Zigbee devices. I constantly have to power cycle devices made by a variety of manufacturers to get them to register again. And I've tried more than a few zigbee hubs. Can't say I'm a fan.
Check interference with wifi signals wifi on channel 1 and zigbee on channel 25 gives you the most separation. As long as a neighbor doesn't blast on wifi channel 11.
There is also software compatibility, I found hue to be the most stable for routers. Osram was terrible, recent firmware made it okay.
I'm in literally the middle of nowhere, the next nearest house is 4 miles away and I'm not even connected to the grid. If there's a wifi signal detectable, it'll be mine. So I've shifted frequencies around trying to get it to stabilize, with little luck. I've primarily been using Sonoff, Aqara, Ikea and SMLight, and hubs from each of them.
Honestly, I've been migrating to zwave since I don't seem to have issue with anything I use on that protocol.
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Never had this with ZigBee, one hub lots of different devices. Had to switch hub to USB2 at beginning to reduce interference but after that smooth sailing.
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Isn't the HA cloud dongle able to do both because they're on the same 2.4 gigahertz or whatever?
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xkcd 927 in action right there.
Zigbee works just fine, but needs a hub to share out devices eg internet access or HomeKit. But it is quick. How thread compares remains to be seen.
Remains to be seen? What other information are you waiting for?
I’ve been using Thread devices for ~5 years now.
How are the battery lives of your devices? I have motion sensors throughout my house connected via zwave, and I replace their button batteries about every 18 months. Does Matter run over a low energy technology?
Thread is just as efficient based on the few battery operated motion sensors I have. That’s another reason Matter over Thread is better than Matter over WiFi.
I personally won’t buy another IoT device unless it’s Matter over Thread.
With that said, if you already use home assistant, and what you have works well enough. I wouldn’t rush to upgrade. But I would choose Matter + Thread over older technologies moving forward.
If you want to move to all HomeKit, then the upgrades are worth it.
In an ideal future world, Matter + Thread devices won’t need a vendor app to work. They just connect to your Amazon Voice assistant, or your Google Home, or your Apple HomeKit setup directly. (Or Home Assistant)
In the future we should see more vendors selling Matter compatible devices that don’t even offer an app. But this is down the road.
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Thread is basically the same thing, but with a different upper level layer (IP), lower lever is still 802.15.4
I’ve been using the OG tradfri devices since 2017/18 and have been very happy. Reliable, cheap to add a lightbulb or switch. Just works. Even integrated with home assistant v easily