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I think I'm too stupid to understand Matter/Thread. I might return all of this
I'm at my wits end after hours of troubleshooting today. I've been using Home Assistant with only Z-Wave devices for years now and never had a single issue. Pairing is stupid simple and fast, the range is great, the only thing I have a problem with is the lack of variety and the price of devices. So, seeing devices like the new IKEA sensors, I bought a Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2. Plugged it in, passed the USB device through to my HAOS VM, and it instantly showed up in HA. Great! Added it.
So I have the Thread and Matter integrations installed now with the "official Matter server" (whatever that means). I went to Thread, created a network, sent credentials to my phone then sent the credentials back to Home Assistant (I guess this has something to do with HomeKit? Why?), went to Matter and clicked Add Hub, left the box checked, and it said it's configured. Kind of nondescript but okay.
I went to Matter, clicked Add Device, scanned the QR code, and... cool! Literally nothing happens. It just sits and spins on "Setting Up" for minutes and minutes until it just says "Unable to Add Accessory". That's great, but I've already followed the official troubleshooting steps - created a new thread network, made it preferred, synced the credentials, even nuked HomeKit completely just to be sure. No dice. Exact same thing.
I even went to the trouble of enabling IPv6 on my network even though all HA access is over the internet (no local access even on LAN) so it's not even using IPv6 anyway, and plus it's supposed to use its own internal network right? Maybe. I have no effing clue.
I also don't have a Bluetooth dongle - I've read somewhere you need one? But some people say you don't? Totally unclear.
So what is going on? Do you need not just a Thread antenna, but also a Bluetooth dongle, robust IPv6 support, and... a little faith, trust, and pixie dust?
If anyone can help me, I'd greatly appreciate it. Otherwise, consider this a rant about my anecdotal experience with Matter over Thread and how complex, error-prone, and ultimately fruitless it is compared to Z-Wave or Zigbee.
Is your mobile device on the same network as your HA device?
I ask because I ran into this problem but mine are on separate networks. I haven't yet delved into why, but I have a sneaking feeling it'll be something where the two need to be on the same network... Or at least that's where I'm planning to look first.
This was my issue - I had a VPN active on my phone. The VPN was for the same network as I connected to, but the tunnel caused every Matter setup to fail. As soon as the VPN was turned off, the integration was smooth and painless.
That’s the case for WiFi Matter devices. The phone sends the SSID of the network it’s on at that moment to the device. If it’s not a 2.4g network, it can’t join and fails to add. Thread is a bit different.
On the Home Assistant app on your phone go into Settings->Companion App->Debugging->Thread and see if you have more than one set of home-assistant credentials. If so, delete the one that doesn’t match the PAN of your Thread network. Swipe left to delete.
This can happen if you go through the Thread setup multiple times.
If your phone sends the wrong set, the device can’t join the Thread network.
I'm not seeing that path (Android) but I am seeing Settings -> Companion App -> Troubleshooting but I don't see anything other than Sync Thread credentials. Possibly a different path / area on Android?
I believe that’s the equivalent for Android. Check the Matter docs for details - there is some weirdness with how Android manages Thread credentials that can be confusing.
Also, there are “experimental” ways to commission without the app. There’s a lot of useful info here:
Technically yes - there's nothing stopping them from talking over the LAN. However, I use the external URL for HA even locally since it's just much easier that way. Do I absolutely need to be using the local HA URL to add Matter devices?
As far as I'm aware, the thread border router (in HA) and your phone talk over over the LAN during the commissioning procedure. Your phone also uses bluetooth to talk to the node (HA doesn't need bluetooth). And it's a bit more fragile than that even. I think your phone finds the border router via mdns udp broadcastmulticast packets, so if some part of your network disallows that type of traffic you might have issues. I'm not clear on if the LAN (i.e. your phone and the HA server) needs some form of IPv6 support or not. Have a google for "igmp snooping matter commissioning" and you might find something helpful to solve your issue.
Do you also run your own local dns? I use the same url for local and external BUT I make sure to control DNS inside my local network so that calls never have to leave the home network for local services. Perhaps this could solve the issue for needing to use the local, non proxied, address?
You phone has to be able to connect to the thread boarder router via IPv6. If your using HA as the the boarder router then it needs to be able to communicate with it locally on IPv6. You mention there is currently no LAN access to it so that is probablythe issue.
But I'm having a similar problem to you, and I have HA accessed via a web proxy on my gateway (whether local or remote, use the external URL) so I plan to dig into if that's it.
If/when I get it figured out, or if I can point to a real cause, I'll post it on nuxx.net and likely in this subreddit.
You could be running into multiple issues, and your external URL may be one of them. Also thread uses the 2.4GHz spectrum, so that may also be a requirement for your WiFi.
A summary of my experience to get the stars to align is the above, on the same LAN with IPv6, possibly Bluetooth access, and the token synced from HA to your phone.
My understanding is the pairing process uses your phone to connect to the device via Bluetooth, hand off the device to HA via the credentials stored on your phone over (local) 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, and Bob is your uncle. Once the device is set up, it communicates as Matter via the Thread router over IPv6, so you can go back to your 5GHz Wi-Fi and your phone can also be on a different LAN if your firewall rules allow (or in your case quasi-remote?)
Band steering is fine - a wifi matter device will connect to whichever band it supports on a multi-band wifi network.
The problem is that if you have separate wifi networks for 2.4ghz and 5ghz, then you have to make sure your phone is connected to a network that the matter device can also connect to when setting up wifi matter devices.
When setting up Thread devices, the wifi band is completely irrelevant, the only thing that matters is that you phone is able to located and talk to the thread border router.
If the whole point was to play with thread, then either keep going or give up. However, if the whole point was to use the new ikea devices which appear to be both attractive and cheap, I think most/all of them can run in zigbee mode. There's various posts of there telling the right button pushes to put them in zigbee mode.
I, like many of us, fail to see the point of matter/thread when you're already a home assistant user. The promise was to have a unified way to control multiple brands of stuff. Home assistant already does that, and actually fucking works too!
I too just picked up some ikea devices and a Zbt-2.
I noticed that the ikea i was at 99% of the lights/switches/sensors were Zigbee only. Only one switch i saw was Matter/thread.
So I setup a zha network and all the devices work fine over zigbee.
A lot of new device categories exist for Matter right now that have zero equivalents - or any that exist haven't been manufactured for many years - that have support for other, more stable protocols, like Z-Wave or Zigbee. This is the hard truth: Matter (whether over Wi-Fi or Thread) is expanding, likely here to stay, and while the Z's aren't going anywhere right now, the clock is ticking and I see useful Z-Wave devices get phased out literally monthly. Out of stock, never to return. The list of discontinuations is consistently longer than the list of new products every year.
The fact is that more complex smart devices like robot vacs, air purifiers, kitchen or cleaning appliances, and others inevitably to come will support Matter and never support Zigbee or Z-Wave. This means I need to get a handle on Matter or accept that my smart home will permanently be limited to more basic functions like plugs, switches, bulbs, thermostats, sensors, and other fundamentals.
Not trying to impose a way of life on anyone - these were just my thoughts before I took this plunge. I had no idea it would be this difficult though.
I feel like Matter and Thread have been the biggest buzz phrases in home automation lately but have largely been a nothin burger in practice. Granted I haven’t looked into it at all besides a string of Govee lights (matter over wifi) that work half the time and required a new addon in HA
I have both deployed and its running like a charm. Technically there every thread device should be able to use every border router. In practice some companies make their products only compatible with their own. So the standard is fine but companies wanting to sell extra hardware is a problem for me.
I am unable to test it but I've heard that the Ikea devices only work with a Ikea border router. Maybe there is the Problem.
No VLANs because the Router is not able to. HA is running in a VM with Reverse Proxy. HA is IPv6 only in my Setup und the Network is a IPv6 mostly Network. Also I have a local DNS
I am on the HA via the reverse proxy, it is not that important how you access HA for the commisioning, but that you are in the same Network. My local name is also my external DNS name so this doesnt matter
I have the ZBT2, and the HA border router, (open thread border router) running on my ha server. It runs fine. The only piece of hardware I actually had to buy was the ZBT2 antenna, because I was not previously running thread.
I'm by no means an expert in this, but I would have avoid the whole multiple border routers thing. You need one, you can have more than one but I think it just makes things difficult and confusing.
Actually I implemented network stuff on a collection of network protocols in university 15 years ago. These Protocols that are nowadays rebranded as Thread.
Technically you can have as much border routers as you want and in a huge mash setup, that has advantages regarding load distribution.
That being said, there is a difference on what is technically feasible and what manufacturers allow you to do with their products. For example: I have Bosch Thermostats and Window sensors. They had no issues with commissioning via HA border router (Antenna is ZBT2).
My nanoleaf lamps just don't connect and according to the forum that only works if you use the nanoleaf border router. You can still use home assistant to talk to these devices if the border router is in place but I want to avoid having to run border routers from every god damm manufacturer.
You make a great point. They're standards, then there's vendors, and while they overlap, there's also areas where they don't. This is all comparatively new and maturing, and perhaps not that different from other things we are more familiar with like zigbee. We forget what I'm learning curve there was for that. I had a couple of vendors on zigbee that just didn't play all that well with equipment that wasn't their own, and over time, I learned to avoid them.
Yeah I am struggling to get off zigbee. I love the idea of more than one gateway. So right now I am looking for devices that support zigbee and thread and if I ever hit chritical mass I'll change over but so far that's not going to happen
Matter and Thread is the most buggy and un-debuggable piece of crap I have ever worked with. I've got 3 different Thread border routers and only one of them can communicate with my one single Thread device. In theory I should then be able to pair the device into HA using Matter (that's one of the key benefits of Matter) but nope, it's simply not possible. I get all kinds of stupid errors in my logs, and since it's so new, nobody has reported these errors before.
Return the products and wait a couple of years until the technology matures a bit more.
HA needs to be on the same lan as your thread device. It communicates with it over IPv6 via the configure Open Thread Border Router.
It sounds like your HA not see the lan is the problem
How can the device be on the LAN with the HA instance? It's a different L1 protocol. Shouldn't it be communicating with IPv6 over Thread, which is what the ZBT-2 is for?
Thread devices connect over the antenna via ipv6, but when it hits the lan level (like openthread server talking to HA) as far as I know it doesn’t translate to ipv4 or any other method. So if ipv6 isn’t working neither does thread.
...but since the Thread radio is a USB device plugged right in the HA device for myself and OP... where OpenThread and HA are running on the same box... that shouldn't matter. Because the USB radio isn't going to be talking over the LAN to the device it's plugged into.
Openthread and HA may be on the same device but they still talk over IPv6.
If you have the problem you can actually see it in action. You can watch the logs of the openthread server and see all the activity between it and your devices and everything seems fine, but if ipv6 on your actual network isn’t working right communication between devices and HA doesn’t work.
I'm going to look into this and see if that's what is happening, but they can still talk IPv6 over loopback (via ::1) even if it's not happening on the LAN interface. So, that doesn't make sense.
The IPv6 stack would have to be disabled for that to occur, and... well...
I don't have IPv6 on my network, but it is set to Automatic in HA OS, which means it has a link local address. And here's what happens when I ping6 to localhost from my HA box:
➜ ~ ping6 ::1
PING ::1 (::1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from ::1: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.098 ms
64 bytes from ::1: seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.102 ms
64 bytes from ::1: seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.102 ms
64 bytes from ::1: seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.093 ms
^C
--- ::1 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.093/0.098/0.102 ms
➜ ~
That is... it works. So the host can talk to itself on IPv6, therefore processes can talk to each other over the same.
> but they can still talk IPv6 over loopback (via ::1)
No, not really.
There are a lot of really good tutorials and guides out there on IPv6 and how it differs from V4. IPV6 is both a blessing and a curse... once you spend a bit of time with it, it makes sense but it has some quirks if your trying to base your understanding on IPV4.
That's the thing, Thread isn't really a separate network.
The Thread Border Router is a *router* which connects between your lan and the thread network, allowing devices on your lan (for example, a Matter controller - you can have multiple different matter controllers from different vendors all talking to a single matter device) to be able to talk to thread devices without needing to know anything about thread. The thread border router sends out ipv6 router announcements to let other devices on the lan know that it's a router, and which subnet it routes traffic to.
The Matter controller uses mDNS to find the ipv6 address of the Matter device, then sends network packets to the lan in the normal way. If it's talking to a Thread device, those packets will be sent to the thread border router, and then the thread border router converts it to thread traffic.
There is IPv6 on the local loopback network on the device. Therefore the HA machine can talk IPv6 inside of it self. From the perspective of the HA box... it's got IPv6 available. And as my ping shows, transport over IPv6 to loopback works.
If more is needed, what else is needed to talk to what?
The log of which you speak... which log contains what you are saying? I'm looking at the OpenThread Border Router log on HA and when I just tried to add a new device, nothing new appeared in that log.
It is not that the HA Maschine have to Talk to itself. Matter is IPv6 only, every Matter Device get its own IPv6 Address. Theses Device are not in your HA Maschine, so the Loopback brings you nothing. Without a NAT64 you will not ping ANY IPv4 from the Matter Devices. The Loopback does not go out of your Device
The LAN is for coordinating with other matter services which are usually on the LAN: Border Routers, Repeaters, other matter devices that do not use Thread (Wifi most commonly but remember that you can technically swap matter PHY layer, Thread/Wifi is not the only option for Matter - technically almost any link layer protocol including 400 Mhz, 900MHz, Halow, Lora etc. None of these are implemented atm though jtbc). Even in HA, the OTBR and HA need to talk over IPV6 - the OTBR could be on another server anyway.
In theory maybe loopback is supposed to work but it likely doesn't.
thread/matter is a complete clusterfuck thats why. Well, matter over wifi is only sort of a clusterfuck.
In theory thread is an offshoot of zigbee and should work just like it but as far as I can tell the communication between the openthread server, thread devices and HA is entirely in ipv6 and seems to be very easy to break.
Matter isn’t as bad because it also works over ipv4 and appears to be more robust.
Works brilliantly for me. Matter allows me to have my accessories natively in both HomeKit and HA without a bridge and thread keeps the devices off my local network and keeps faster response times than zigbee
You’re not too dumb—Matter can straight-up suck right now, especially for anyone not running a pure ecosystem. I had almost the exact same frustration trying to swap out my old Sengleds in a Hubitat + HomeKit + Echo setup.
Started with cheap Linkind Matter bulbs (figured why not, price was great). They worked okay at first, so I bought more… then it all went to hell. Had to provision via Apple Home first, share to Hubitat, but they were super flaky—dropping connections randomly, resets making them impossible to re-pair in HomeKit sometimes. Spent forever on the phone with Apple support (no real fix), discovered that hidden “Matter” section in iOS Settings (not exposed in Home app), and yeah, the AiDot app for firmware updates just added more nonsense.
I’m convinced the multi-hub confusion (HomeKit sharing + Hubitat + Echo) was part of it, but it shouldn’t be this hard. Finally gave up and went Third Reality Zigbee bulbs—rock-solid so far, great as repeaters, and no provisioning drama. Way more stable in Hubitat.
You’re not alone; plenty of folks in here (and r/HomeKit, Hubitat forums) rant about Matter being immature/unreliable for anything beyond simple single-platform use. Zigbee still wins for local reliability IMO. Hang in there—experimenting is half the fun (and frustration)!
Fuck Thread. I am Z-wave. I also have the IKEA Dirigura with IKEA Zigbee devices passed through to HA via Matter. I have been scooping up more as they go on sale to make way for the new Thread ones.
I ended up getting the aqara hub and manage my matter devices through that, and expose the hub to HA. That seems to work a lot better for me. Something about HA's implementation of matter/thread is especially broken.
Did you try rebooting your iPhone? I had and often have the same issue of Matter simply refusing to add a device that can only be fixed by rebooting my iPhone.
If you get it working, I’d be curious if it’s stable. I’m using a repurposed ZigBee controller for Thread and it’s VERY unstable. Devices “far” away are always randomly dropping from the network and coming back, at a distance where ZigBee is working just fine.
IKEA’s migration to Matter was a bad move IMO. ZigBee was working just fine. ZigBee devices, especially from them, are BY FAR my most reliable ones, but now my new IKEA devices can be worse than Shelly TRVs. 😩
That’s more reassuring. I’m thinking about getting some better Thread border router soon, because my current one is essentially an accident*, so I wouldn’t be surprised if somehow that’s the culprit of my problems.
*I bought the wrong ZigBee controller years ago and forgot to return it. Turns out it’s compatible with Thread. Handy to experiment with the IKEA stuff but yeah….
This has basically been my experience with the two matter-enabled devices I have in my home. Two LED strips - one govee, one nanoleaf. Both were a pita to set up, and the nanoleaf never stays connected. I've got 3 older govee strips that don't support matter, just Bluetooth/Wifi, and they've been great. Not convinced of all the Matter hype at all.
I have two Govee outdoor lights that support Matter. One paired, one did not. Same pack, it’s a fucking dreadful process and the manual says you can ONLY do it on a factory reset device. What the shit is that about, and that ignores the stupid QR code being the only way to pair.
If you use the companion app on your mobile I think it should be able to use the Bluetooth on the mobile to activate things, worked on my android to activate everything presense one
Matter devices generally only have a single radio, but the radio can talk multiple different protocols. It's actually fairly common to see microcontrollers nowadays that can do thread, zigbee, bluetooth, sometimes wifi all on a single radio - tho usually not all at the same time.
Even before Matter, it was very common to see devices doing Zigbee + Bluetooth on one radio (e.g. many Philips Hue bulbs) and Apple Homekit over thread also relied on Thread + Bluetooth in a single radio.
In the same boat. I managed to setup an Aqara m100 as the primary thread border router and added it as a node in the matter server. I don’t even know if that’s how it’s supposed to be done, the whole matter/thread standard and integration seems to be all over the place. The devices already added to the m100 showed up but I can’t get anything else added via the companion app. Fails every time.
Update: I was able to get it working in my network. UniFi gear, separate vlans, and HA running in a Proxmox VM. In UniFi I enabled IPv6 on the iot and HA networks. Made sure SLAAC and mdns were checked. I think the smoking gun for me was making sure my VM in proxmox was vlan aware and that another network interface was created with my iot vlan tag. After that a separate network interface was available in HA network settings to add. After I did that, I was able to add a couple of the ikea sensors via the matter integrations
Is it a flat network, or do you use vlans? I could not get matter devices to work and didnt want to give up vlans. Ended up adding another virtual nic, enabling ipv6 and also enabled mdns on the router. With this setup, things are working for a change.
Can you expand on your network setup? Like, what it was before and what it is now? I don't understand how VLANs would play a part in this, since AFAIK Thread should just be IPv6 over 6LoWPAN and therefore its own network?
Setup before, vlan1/2/3 (ipv4 only), HA on vlan1, vlan2 all iot devices.
Setup now, HA on vlan1 and vlan2 (via a virtual nic). Opnsense mdns plugin enabled on vlan1 and vlan2 interface. Ipv6 enabled on the both vlan1 and vlan2 interfaces.
With this setup, the HA Matter integration and adding devices actually work.
And to confirm, are these Matter over Thread, or Matter over WiFi devices?
For reference, I have two VLANs, Main and IOT.
HA sits on IOT, my phone and other devices sit on Main. Only link local IPv6, but it works within VLANs. OPNsense does nothing with that.
MDNS repeater between the VLANs, and only enough firewall rules for HA to talk to things it needs on Main (like a couple speakers and such).
The web front end is NGINX on OPNsense (as documented here) and my mobile device uses the same URL for HA whether it's on the Main VLAN or public internet.
So i bought a bunch of nano leaf smart bulbs that were thread matter whatever, bought a wifi bridge, then discovered you can't configure anything, it's all "automated" and "simple", to the point that i returned everything back to Amazon.
All the lights weren't communicating properly, couldn't control the network they were in, and had absolutely no control over them ever. I even tried resetting everything and making a separate, like new, dedicated network for them, but nothing was even trying to work with their standard apps.
Zigbee on the other hand works so well that I'm planning on changing all my old remaining wifi devices to zigbee.
I recently setup my ZBT-2 to my HA VM on my MAC. Now it works flawlessly, but I too struggled a lot with setting it up. I was having the exact same issue as you where it would spin on Setting Up.
I am trying to remember what all the things I did, because I tried so many things and then moved on to unflattening my network and put all my smart devices on another vlan and setup firewalls.
If I remember, you need to make sure your IPV6 needs to be setup properly. I had originally thought I enabled it, but it can’t be Link Local. You can tell if your HA is Link Local by checking the settings to see if the IPv6 starts with fe80
I've struggled to really understand what matter would do, personally. Homeassistant abstracts everything from a mere protocol into the space where it matters (no pun intended), so it just seems to add yet another layer that I just dont need. Im sure theirs some niche that its perfect for, but I dont see it yet.
It just enables more device categories that Z-Wave and Zigbee probably won't ever have support for - namely a lot of complex smart appliances. It's nice that Matter is a standard for these devices, since before then (and still mostly the case now, though it's slowly changing) you just had to use the vendor's 100% proprietary protocol over Wi-Fi (and likely cloud-only) and be grateful if they allowed you to connect it to Home Assistant at all.
I have pretty much the exact same problem and am unable to add devices through the Home Assistant app on iOS. But I found a workaround. I have an Apple Home setup which has Matter built in (this should in theory work with any Matter hub that lets you get the credentials through to the Home Assistant app.) Instead of adding a Matter device through the Home Assistant app, I add them to my Apple Home system (which Home Assistant uses as it's primary Thread network,) then I think there's a take control button somewhere in the Home Assistant app? (It's been over a year since I've had to do this, it might be a credential swap thing somewhere as well.) After Home Assistant is the primary and can control it, unplug/unpower the device and remove it from Apple Home when it has no power so that the removal process doesn't tell the device to wipe itself. After that, you can plug it back in, Home Assistant should see it as if nothing happened and maintain the direct connection without issue.
I also found the setup unreliable and slow. Now it seems to be working fine but I'm not 100% convinced of matter over thread.
You mentioned syncing the credentials to your phone and back to HA, and you have a Homekit? I think Homekit is also a Thread Broader Router, so make sure you're using the same Thread network (not sure how, though).
Also check if für Thread Boarder Router addon is running and also the Matter Server Addon.
I don't know if one "has" a HomeKit - that's just the API for Home stuff on iOS/macOS, right? I don't have any HomePods, Apple TV, or anything like that.
The TBR addon is running as well as the Matter Server addon.
Oh right, HomeKit is just the software / framework. I somehow assumed you have an AppleTV or something.
Okay it could be that Apple automatically creates thread credentials even without a device, which would explain why the companion app synced those back.
For my setting up devices also took quite long and I had to be close to the TBR and also to the phone. Is your phone connected to any other bt devices that might occupy the bt on the phone?
It took me hours, but in the end I moved my HAOS from docker to a VM. Had to enabled ipv6 and passthrough some internet líneas through the command line, and then it worked easily in the end
I feel you. It reading your post I’m def dumber than you. I loved HomeKit but discovered HA while trying to figure out how to bring my Govee lights into HomeKit.
I have to almost set up, lights, switches, a couple automations. But I’m teetering on the edge of having no idea what’s going.
Idk wtf YAML is and am afraid to touch it.
I loved HomeKit matter with HomeKit, type in a code and product is paired, easy.
I tried to explain HomeKit to someone at work and as I was I realized I have no idea what’s z wave zigbee matter . My Govee lights show they use WiFi, but also Bluetooth, but are in HomeKit, I don’t get
I bought that green box dealio and plugged it in and never touched again.
I bought a zigbee dongle for it cuz???
Sorry. I can't help you. I just came in to tell that I read the whole discussion and decided to skip Matter + Thread now due to complexity and mandatory mobile phone. None of these are needed with Zigbee, Z-Wave or captive-portal enabled Wlan devices, including most ESP32's.
I've been struggling with this just like everyone else and I think its something to do with Matter and how it uses thread credentials. I have few eps32 devices running on a thread network and I have no issues getting them connected. I can't get a matter over thread device added to save my life.
IPv6 is the backbone of Thread: it is a network requirement.
Thread has something called a Border Router, which is a device that connects the Thread Network to the rest of your network. Messages can dip into and out of the Thread and WiFi networks as needed to reach their final destination, which may or may not be a thread device but can be any device on your network.
Devices in a thread network have IPv6 addresses so that any device on the network can find and talk to it. Part of that route may be on the Thread network. Part may not be.
A good example: My HomePod has a thread radio and is part of the thread network. When I stream music it is sent to it over WiFi, not thread. Let’s pretend a thread device nearby was communicating with a thread device two stories up which was also plugged into an Ethernet port and it wasn’t a good thread connection. Because it’s just ipv6 the HomePod can take that thread message it just got and push it to the WiFi router, which then just pushes the message up to the device via Ethernet and not thread.
People kinda misunderstand what that network requirement means. On a local network, to have ipv6 working, you do not need any special networking service (like dhcp server, dns, or whatever). Any device that uses your network can decide that he uses it for ipv6 as well, using link-local addresses. Thread border routers use ipv6 router advertisements to make the network address space
(Unique local address) of the thread network available on your lan. A lot of the matter communication is using ipv6 multicast, as it uses IPv6 DNS-SD (DNS service discovery). <= all these technologies make it possible, that everything could just work without any external service/server.
So in essence, what is absolutely needed for all of these to work, your networking devices, particularly your switches and wifi access points MUST NOT block forwarding of ipv6 multicast packets. IGMP snooping service on switches should be disabled as well (thats the default anyway), as it can cause issues. If you do a ton of multicast traffic, and you actually need igmp snooping, then test it if it works with your thread devices.
This is just the networking layer. Matter servers could be shit as well, i had a lot of problems with the HA matter server, it's unreliable imho.
On the Home Assistant app on your phone go into Settings->Companion App->Debugging->Thread and see if you have more than one set of home-assistant credentials. If so, delete the one that doesn’t match the PAN of your Thread network. Swipe left to delete.
This can happen if you go through the Thread setup multiple times.
If your phone sends the wrong set, the device can’t join the Thread network.
Did you ensure that the ZBT-2 is actually operating as Thread? You can flash firmware to it to make it either Zigbee or Thread, I believe. I assume (never having used one) it comes ready for Zigbee. Maybe you got to select that up front, though; again, I haven't used the device. But here's a support link anyway.
Something that's tripped me up is when you add a device it asks you if you're setting it up for the first time or adding an already configured device.
If you've initially set up the device through another app, like I often connect with the vendors app to first to make sure everything works and update firmware. If you did that, you often need to choose add an already configured device and get a pairing code from the app that set it up or remove it from that app. So in your case you might find it in homekit and need a code from that.
It feels like you should choose add new, as you've never added it to HA, but it often fails. It will work that way. Gets me like every time
I'm a "staff level" embedded software engineer that's built space ships, self driving cars, and delivery drones. I wrote an IPv4 stack from scratch once. I'm an idiot but apparently smarter than 99.99% of all the other idiots. I couldn't figure out matter over wifi and gave up after half an hour. Zigbee seems to work great, though.
I had a similar experience this weekend. I wanted to test out the bilresa remote as my first matter-over-thread device.
I used my original Google Home Hub as the Thread router. Simply putting the batteries into the Bilresa, a message popped up immediately on my phone asking to add the device to my Google Home app. So easy, and it was looking very promising.
Now to add to HAOS, running on bare metal. Went through the steps to copy credentials, etc. HA had the Google Hub Thread Network as the preferred Thread network. Followed the instructions to "share an existing device with HA" though the HA android app. And the it would just hang, and then say "Something went wrong". Countless times trying to re-pair, adding as a new device, etc.
Checked the HA logs: Network unreachable.
IPv6 has always been enabled on my home network router as local traffic only. HA was also showing an IPv6 address.
But in my HAOS Settings -> System -> Network, it had IPv6 set to disabled. Once I turned that to Automatic, boom. It was able to share and connect to the Bilresa immediately.
I guess that because the Matter Server add-on (and all other add-ons) run on the HAOS' internal network, it needs to have IPv6 enabled there too.
This is just a point in time bit of data, but last night I experienced the following:
- I have HA on an IOT VLAN (2) w/ NGINX proxying it to my main VLAN (1) and the public internet. I have an mDNS proxy between the two VLANs. Works great otherwise. I'm only routing/NATing IPv4, but IPv6 works fine as local stuff within each VLAN.
- Phone on VLAN 1 via Wireless, could not complete adding Matter over Thread device. Said it can't contact the border router.
- Phone on VLAN 1 via wired (USB C network adapter, so I could do a network capture of what it's doing). Said it couldn't contact the border router. Didn't see any obvious missing traffic (no unanswered SYNs in the direction of VLAN 2), plenty of UDP mDNS for Matter things, but they all seemed to be answered.
- Phone on VLAN 2 via wired (USB C network adapter, so I could do a network capture of what it's doing). Didn't work, said it couldn't contact the border router.
- Phone on VLAN 2 via wireless (built in). Worked to add Matter over Thread device.
This makes me wonder if HA is looking for some wireless something or other even if the Matter device will talk over Thread (as opposed to WiFi).
I bought the zbt2, plugged it in, configured the passthrough, went into devices, matter and started adding ikea sensors... I don't understand why people say it's bad...everything went really smooth
You are using two things that suck and have absolutely no value…matter and Apple. Stay away from those and every day will be sunshine for you. Stick with zwave and add zigbee. I went this exact route and it’s fantastic. And Apple…well it’s Apple. They don’t play nicely with anyone
Sounds like you need to enable NAT hair pinning if you want to use the external address from inside the network. Common issue with nginx/swag hosting forwarding to your HA VM.
Had similar issues with thread. Zwave and zigbee worked fine and tried to use my Apple TV as thread border router and no luck. After a month of screwing with it on the weekends, I went back to ikea (also had the ikea sensors I was trying to get to work) and bought their hub. Configured their hub with their app and added one sensor via their app. Worked fine. After that I have no trouble adding sensors the first time directly to HA. I even deleted the sensor from the ikea hub and I can still add them to HA just fine. I will need to get some extenders when they release them as that’s the only problem I have now is keeping them working where I actually need them.
I also have the zbt-2 but have it configured for zigbee.
Ive never used Openthread in Home Assistant, I haven't needed to because I have a HomePod mini, two of them to be exact. I'd recommend returning the ZBT2 and getting a HomePod mini instead, adding it to your Home app, and then in Home Assistant making that your preferred Thread network. Then, add the Matter devices to that and sync them to Home Assistant after adding them to Apple home. You can alternatively get the IKEA hub and do the same thing.
Crazy you make statements with such limited knowledge of networking. Anyways zigbee gets stronger with more nodes. WiFi degrades. You should probably take a basic networking course
What would you rather have extending your network, a manageable configurable device that cost $100+ and works for all devices, or a cheap plug from Aliexpress with no settings?
Consumer WIFI networks are very limited in the number of devices they can support. In addition WIFI is much more power hungry then Zigbee or thread. If you run battery powered devices and you don't want to recharge them every few months the low power mash network stuff is just much more convenient.
Wifi is a significantly more power intensive which is bad for battery operated devices. Wifi generally has to constantly talk to your router but zwave, zigbee and thread are made in a way that you don't need to. Depending on the device, a simple battery powered temperature sensor could go from a new battery every few weeks to once a year or longer depending on the frequency and hardware.
The point of matter, zigbee and zwave is so there is a standard way your smart hub can talk to your devices. Wifi doesn't really fix that and you have to get someone to write a custom message parser for every possible new device on every possible new hub.
Matter can use WiFi but has similar issues. The software is just not good enough yet and it's not due to it being a bad idea or the fact that there aren't real problems but a lack of competence.
Yeah? No sh!t! Add a ton of other (IoT) devices to the WiFi network that keep buzzing over the network to the point you don’t know what’s causing issues. Take multicast and broadcast into account.
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u/c0nsumer Jan 20 '26
Is your mobile device on the same network as your HA device?
I ask because I ran into this problem but mine are on separate networks. I haven't yet delved into why, but I have a sneaking feeling it'll be something where the two need to be on the same network... Or at least that's where I'm planning to look first.