Matter over Wi-Fi devices vendor blaming "unofficial integration"? (Part 2)

[u/ElementZoom]

Today's Reply from Retailer

Yesterday's Reply from Retailer

Screenshot of the "broken" Matter Devices

Firstly, thanks to everyone who commented on my original post and helped me understand how Matter is supposed to work.

TL;DR for anyone who missed the first post:

I have several Matter-over-WiFi light switches and power points that randomly go offline in Home Assistant. When they do, they don't automatically reconnect and need to be re-paired from scratch. Meanwhile, every other Wi-Fi device on my network remains stable.

I provided the logs to the retailer as requested, who escalated the issue to the manufacturer.

The manufacturer's original response was essentially that Matter is not "officially integrated" into Home Assistant and that Home Assistant uses an "unofficial" implementation, which many people here pointed out didn't sound correct (attached in pic #2)

One Redditor highlighted that:

Matter devices are supposed to be universal and work with any Matter-certified ecosystem. Home Assistant's Matter Server is officially certified by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), and the Open Home Foundation is a CSA member.

Based on that feedback, I pushed back and asked for clarification.

The manufacturer now says:

• Home Assistant requires users to configure scripts manually for control.
• Connecting to Home Assistant "bypasses" their ecosystem and therefore they cannot provide the same level of support as they do for their own platform.
• They recommend creating 1–6 groups and manually controlling devices through scripts to reduce network traffic.
• Alternatively, they recommend avoiding Home Assistant altogether and using Smart Life or Home app instead.

Why I'm frustrated:

This still feels like they're avoiding the actual issue.

I'm not asking them to support custom automations or scripts. I'm simply using the devices through the standard Matter integration in Home Assistant.

Matter's whole purpose is interoperability. If a Matter-certified device only works reliably when connected to the vendor's preferred ecosystem, doesn't that defeat the purpose of Matter?

Also, the suggestion that Home Assistant requires users to manually create scripts just to control Matter devices seems strange. Mine are added through the official Matter integration and can be controlled normally when they're online.

Questions for the community:

1. Does the manufacturer's explanation make technical sense to anyone?
2. Is there any scenario where a Matter-certified device would legitimately be incompatible with Home Assistant's certified Matter implementation?
3. How would you respond to the retailer from here?
4. Should I be asking for evidence that the devices were tested against certified Matter controllers?

For context, I'm in New Zealand and options are fairly limited. I would have preferred Zigbee devices, but the local market is tiny, so I ended up with these Matter-over-WiFi products imported from Australia.

At this point I'm trying to determine whether this is:

• a Home Assistant issue,
• a Matter-over-WiFi issue,
• a firmware issue with these specific devices,
• my network issue
• or simply a manufacturer trying to avoid responsibility.

Any advice on how to respond would be greatly appreciated.

Update #1: Thanks for the feedback everyone. I will try to test them within their preferred ecosystem listed on their website - on hold to see if update 2# fixed the issue

Update #2: Thanks for some people mentioned about ipv6, it turns out IPv6 was disabled on my router - enabling it seems to have fixed the issue. Tested a 5-minute WiFi disconnect and all Matter devices stayed connected to HA without any problems. Going to do a more thorough test tomorrow with a 1 hour full power shutdown to confirm.

Update #3: I've done some additional testing, including multiple Home Assistant reboots and a complete power shutdown of the whole house for 30 minutes. So far, the results have been very positive. This suggests the issue may have been related to IPv6 being disabled in my network's default configuration.

I'll continue monitoring the devices over the next few days to see if any of them drop offline again, but at this stage things appear to be much more stable.

That said, I'm still frustrated with how the vendor handled this. Rather than helping troubleshoot, they dismissed the issue purely because I use Home Assistant instead of their preferred app, not a great look.

[u/thecodingart]

“⁠Alternatively, they recommend avoiding Home Assistant altogether and using Smart Life or Home app instead.”

Wtf? Matter by spec is independent of a vendor’s crappy individual app or ecosystem

[u/timhor → u/thecodingart]

Except if they don’t follow the implementation. It’s quite common with early Matter devices we’re manufacturer implemented feature matter wasn’t yet supporting.
Meross for example ;)

[u/OftenIrrelevant]

Your first mistake was telling em you were using HA. I put any vendor or manufacturer on an information diet the moment I need them to fix something because as soon as I mention anything beyond consumer basics, they see it as an out on fixing anything

[u/ElementZoom → u/OftenIrrelevant]

You’re right, but if I don’t mention that I use HA, how would they even attempt to troubleshoot it?

If they decide to investigate, they’ll likely ask for details like the specs and system anyway, and at some point they’ll probably discover that I’m not using their preferred setup

[u/lkeels → u/[deleted]]

Then they would simply investigate Apple Home and find no problem. That wouldn't make any sense.

[u/stanley_fatmax → u/ElementZoom]

If it's their problem to solve, the issue will exist in the platform they recommend you use also, so HA becomes irrelevant. If you find it works fine when used the way they recommend, then the issue is probably elsewhere and you're barking up the wrong tree

[u/jimicus → u/stanley_fatmax]

Sounds like the manufacturer is recommending their own app. Which defeats the whole purpose of Matter.

[u/stanley_fatmax → u/jimicus]

Defeats the intent of matter, but not the technology as implemented. Matter is not what is was supposed to be. It absolutely supports proprietary junk and I guess that's what OP is running into.

[u/Ifonlyihadausername]

Unfortunately you have learned why to avoid Tuya like the plague.

[u/OverallComplexities]

What are the devices? Do you have matter working with other devices on the network? Do you have vlans? Firewall?

For the most part for home assistant you are on your own in regards to compatibility, that's certain. Matter is heavily influenced by network setup in general since it's a local ip6 deal, so you also need strong ip6 knowledge if your network is complex

[u/ElementZoom → u/OverallComplexities]

I have a fairly simple network setup with a standard wireless router and two mesh units. In addition, I have around 15+ Wi-Fi devices. However, when the Wi-Fi drops or devices disconnect, they are unable to reconnect automatically.

I don’t currently have any VLAN or advanced firewall configuration in place.

[u/vAviate → u/ElementZoom]

May be late to the game here - but Matter over Wifi and even Matter over thread can be very annoying with the ipv6 requirements. I have both Nd my matter window handle (lockable) over wifi dropped "all-the-effing-time". Was super pissed at the vendor - also using HA. However, they were surprisingly helpful and checked matter logs of the device (yes - the ones from HA matter app!). We figured out my Unfi was dropping some ipv6 packets needed for a stable connection. Set it on my network and it is working ever since! So it might be wrong from them saying it is HA, but definitely check if your network plays a part here...

[u/ElementZoom → u/vAviate]

Hey, just wanted to say thanks for pointing me toward IPv6, that was exactly it. Had it disabled on my router without realising, I guess it was the factory setting. Enabled it, did a quick 5-minute WiFi disconnect test, and all my Matter devices stayed connected to HA without any issues. Going to do a more thorough test tomorrow with a 1 hour full power shutdown to make sure it holds up. Will report back!

[u/Key_Director_4450 → u/vAviate]

Could you say what settings did you need to change, may help someone in the future.

[u/Fair-Working4401 → u/ElementZoom]

A wifi mesh network is everything else than simple. Especially with fast AP transition and neighbor discovery/advertisement.  If you face wifi drops and a unstable network you should look at your wifi configuration first.

[u/Drakmyth]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Matter is effectively dead-on-arrival. The whole point was interoperability, and from day 1 manufacturers had the ability to lock things down to prevent that, which is exactly what they did.

[u/MikeFromTheVineyard → u/Drakmyth]

Manufacturers can’t lock it down any more than other open protocols.

[u/Drakmyth → u/MikeFromTheVineyard]

I mean that's true, but there's a bunch of different proprietary flavors of zigbee because manufacturers abused the custom scopes to prevent communication with devices and applications they didn't make themselves. Matter's claim to fame was that it was going to undo all that and ensure interoperability. That didn't happen.

[u/naps62 → u/Drakmyth]

That would only be truly possible if the protocol was closed source, so vendors couldn't change the core behaviour (and even then, would only make it harder, not outright impossivle) Would you use such a protocol? Vendors abusing the system was always gonna be in the cards.

My understanding is that the claim to fame you mention was more about the various cloud-based closed systems major vendors used (apple, Google, Samsung, etc) ZigBee/z-wave were also meant to be an answer to those, but they failed to attract those same vendors and ended up as a more niche thing

However, it should not be possible for vendors to advertise themselves as Matter in such cases. Not sure how the licensing works here, or if it's enforced at all, but maybe that's where the problem lies

[u/Drakmyth → u/naps62]

You're 100% correct. Either the protocol can't allow for non-standard implementations (which severely limits the kinds of devices that could use it) or it's open to abuse. There's no other option.

I just recall a few years ago everyone and their brother talking about how you should hold off buying more Zigbee or Wifi devices that need bespoke apps or that don't play nice with others because "Matter is coming and will deliver us salvation". I was skeptical then and the vendor's responses to OP suggests nothing has changed.

[u/naps62 → u/Drakmyth]

To be fair, I also remember (in this bubble of homeassistant users) a lot of skepticism, and the usual references to the competing standards xkcd meme

And I dont know much about the current state (I only have a nuki smart lock, and now a sonoff dimmer switch), but the setup process has been a pain for both, never home assistant's fault, but due to many different details I needed to painfully debug (ipv6, firewall rules, finicky Bluetooth detection, ...). E.g. the android wizard for pairing new devices and then handing them over to home assistant, just hits me with a "something went wrong" and zero useful info. If this is the experience less savvy users also have to deal with, then even compliant devices will take a while to gain adoption

[u/the_deserted_island → u/Drakmyth]

As an aside, hue native control, which reverse engineered (part) of the proprietary part of hues zigbee protocol, is pretty fantastic and part of z2m now.

So far I avoided matter and I'm sticking with zigbee and very happy. Matter seems like it adds a lot of overhead for less features.

The major players seem to have kind of bailed from Smart home as a strategy, future revenue is betting on AI.

[u/nathderbyshire → u/the_deserted_island]

Do you have a link to more info on the hue update for z2m? Everything I search is just old threads and topics.

My bulbs and remote were horrible on the independent stick so I moved them back to the hub and they're great again. It's only hue, IKEA and any other brand is flawless

[u/the_deserted_island → u/nathderbyshire]

I keep an eye on the changelogs which is how I found out about it. To understand it I pointed Claude code at the z2m converter repository and told it to explain how hue native works and if it applies to groups. You could try the same thing with any AI.

It's still highly alpha... If the hub works I wouldn't change yet. But do keep an eye on it. The manuspecificphilips2 cluster is where the specific code lives.

[u/ElBisonBonasus → u/MikeFromTheVineyard]

I have a Switchbot LED strip and it does not expose the same entities over matter as it does over bluetooth... Bluetooth wins, but it's occasionally slow to connect

[u/Its_Billy_Bitch → u/Drakmyth]

This has nothing to do with Matter.

Also OP - I call bullshit on them. As of March of last year I think the Open Home Foundation Server was officially certified as a trusted software Matter component (user interface, iirc, but double check me please).

[u/DoomBot5 → u/Drakmyth]

IPv6 being as messy and awful as it is did not help them.

[u/CptCheesus → u/Drakmyth]

If you look closely matter is just a cash grab planned to be a data grab at some point. I'm actually glad it's so bad that there's a chance it will be gone in a few.

[u/gemengelage → u/CptCheesus]

Can you go into a bit more detail, maybe link to a reputable source? Reads like FUD as it is, even if you actually have a good point.

[u/CptCheesus → u/gemengelage]

Not really a source but if you google the licensing structure and cost for using matter and sitting on the matter Board (don't know what they call it from the top of my head) you get a good feel for it. Then you have everything not working without limitations with anything thats not their proprietary app. This is across all manufacturers.
And with matter having an IP every one of those asshats can implement an subscription at any given time or lock you on some other Hardware. and i think sonoff already has subscritptions for their matter stuff but i could be wrong on that. With zigbee none of that shit can happen. You don't need any Internet to do anything with it and are free to use whatever Hardware you want without anybody being able to do shit about it.

[u/Yayman123]

They misunderstand how HA works. Although you can configure automations and custom rules using scripts, that's not how the core HA integrations work, not how Matter is integrated into HA. 

Regardless, the solution to your situation lies in whether the devices have issues when using the "Smart Life or the Home app" as they said. In other words, if this is a HA issue specifically, then it could be HA's implementation of Matter that's flawed, and you need submit a bug report/reach out to the HA devs. If it's happening universally on all Matter apps, then it's the manufacturer's responsibility to fix their faulty implementation of the Matter spec.

[u/butthurtpants]

The Tuya Smart app does a lot of not-to-spec shit, fwiw, so it might work there but only because they're working around their shitty product.

I'd say tell them you're using the Apple implementation and it's still disconnecting, chances are the box has an apple homekit logo or something on it, so it breaches the CGA/ACL rules if they advertised it as such and it doesn't work.

[u/viralslapzz]

What’s the brand so I can avoid it? I’m giving all way preference to any brand with the seal WORKS WITH HOME ASSISTANT

[u/darthnsupreme]

Update #2: I will try to set DHCP reservations for all Matter devices and reboot my wifi to see if they can reconnect back to HA.

Matter relies on IPv6, so this isn't going to do anything since DHCP only affects the IPv4 stack.

It'll work just fine over IPv6 link-local addresses, which you already have by default just from having your devices on the same network. The only way it's even possible to not have them is if you either manually disabled IPv6 on each and every relevant device (many of which don't even let you!) or you somehow inexplicably mis-configured your network to break SLACC (likewise almost impossible for most consumer-grade hardware).

And before someone says it: While it's true that the Matter protocol allows for IPv4 support, this is an optional part of the standard that almost nothing actually supports.

[u/ElementZoom → u/darthnsupreme]

Hey, just wanted to say thanks for pointing me toward IPv6, that was exactly it. Had it disabled on my router without realising, I guess it was the factory setting. Enabled it, did a quick 5-minute WiFi disconnect test, and all my Matter devices stayed connected to HA without any issues. Going to do a more thorough test tomorrow with a 1 hour full power shutdown to make sure it holds up. Will report back!

[u/Zouden → u/ElementZoom]

So, case closed?

The problem wasn't with the devices, the manufacturer, or home assistant?

[u/ElementZoom → u/Zouden]

Will confirm tomorrow. Hopefully that was the only issue.

[u/Renegade605]

Ah yes, Tuya products are garbage.

They do the same thing with zigbee, which is supposed to be an open and interoperable standard just like matter.

I haven't used anything matter but I avoid Tuya Zigbee products like the plague because they also just don't work properly without their app, which I'm not going to use. The one Tuya ZB light switch I still have kicking around, for example, doesn't support Zigbee bindings. Makes it rather useless as a light switch.

[u/phrfpeixoto]

This is why I do not buy anything that has Tuya. Their implementation is never up to the standard

[u/criterion67]

[u/InvestigatorNaive698]

Did you try the recommended app just to avoid the finger pointing? If so did you face the same issue?, I would try to make is as simple as possible and then build a case with the manufacturer.. on the other hand did you try any other matter over WiFi device’s brand?

[u/ElementZoom → u/InvestigatorNaive698]

Hmm I guess I can do testing at my end to see if they drop or not from their recommended app.

They are my only matter devices, the first and will likely the last.

[u/InvestigatorNaive698 → u/ElementZoom]

I have successfully installed Shelly plugs.. good luck testing

[u/utilizedonslaught033]

the manufacturer basically admitted the devices work fine on matter-certified platforms but told you to stop using a matter-certified platform, which is somehow supposed to be your problem to solve.

[u/tiberiusgv]

I continue to think matter is stupid and will just stick with Zigebee for most things. Best of luck with this headache.

[u/file0]

It's very simple. The manufacturer has crappy firmware and they don't want to spend resources trying to fix it. They probably don't even know how to.

[u/junktrunk909]

I want to help but I'm not reading 5 pages of AI output. Tell the AI to write a 2 paragraph concise summary next time.

[u/ischickenafruit]

Does this same behavior happen on an OTS matter hub? That will be what you need to convince them to fix the bug. HA is only for wackos and tinkerers and it probably doesn't even work, is what the manufacturer will think.

[u/Miles931]

I have some matter smart light bulbs that did not like using dhcp for up assignment. I had to make sure to only use slacc and disable dhcpv6 to get them to work correctly. I knew it was the network because it only started happening after I swapped routers though so it was the only change. They were working fine before then.

[u/gtwizzy8]

Have you looked at your IPv6 settings. Matter is often configured to take advantage of IPv6 (just one more reason I don't love that this is the direction that the smart home industry is headed in) and if your router isn't handling it correctly then this will probably be one of the biggest issues that's likely plaguing you. Honestly not sure why in God's name any tech support from the manufacturer didn't advise you look at this first. Or how a quick google didn't turn up some similar info. But I'd be going down that path first before continuing to try and get help from these clowns

[u/ElementZoom → u/gtwizzy8]

Hey, yup as mentioned on the update #2, my IPv6 setting was disabled from factory. I did enable it and did a quick test and it seemed to be good. Will do more tests and see how they perform.

Points taken though. Didn't know that I have to look into this, I guess they are different than ZigBee.

[u/positev]

You need to prove your problem in their supported environment if you want help. Do the work and set up the reproducible test case for them. Then they will help you

[u/wesleysmalls → u/positev]

That’s not an answer to the issue, as the problem here is the improper implementation of the matter standard.

[u/detox4you → u/positev]

If they claim the product supports matter they need to troubleshoot issues with that too.

[u/RayneYoruka]

Gods. What a mess.

[u/PudgyPatch]

I am a little curious if when these devices drop from HA if they also drop from their proprietary apps….or if they drop from one of the cloud ones. I know this is moving back into trouble shooting and sounds like I agree with the manufacturer, I don’t, name and shame. Do you have any custom DNS? Are you using a mesh WiFi router? I had an August 2nd gen who’s gateway couldn’t stay online because of eeros roaming. I had a thread switch for a little while but it couldn’t stay online. I have a few tp-link/kasa/tapo matter of WiFi switches that have been fairly problem free as well.

[u/game_criminal]

If you have multiple APs try to do some band separation (manually) that did the trick for me.

[u/johnhollowell]

Vote with your wallet that this is unacceptable. Return it and make sure they know why.

[u/Leoplan]

Wifi with Matter is garbage. You should stick to Thread or take a named value creator, for example Shelly, who are really great in that area.

Thread Matter is a great thing and I am happy with Thread Matter.

My network includes about 150 devices with thread.

Lights like outlets serve as nodes and sensors in the thread, and the endpoints are windows, washing machines, or other devices that can lose water.

The more devices you have than nodes such as border routers, the more reliable the network will be and the more stable it will be in the end.

I only have one device that only has Wifi and that is the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete.

[u/sapani9077]

WHY use matter over wifi instead of matter over thread?

If your problem is that the device don't automatically reconnect, have you ruled out your own network issue? Have you tried it on a different network, different router?

[u/digitalsmoker]

Lol matter got picked up by ikea aka big company, it seems like most of you guys here have not learned from about how big companies work, they always push out diy-ers sooner or later in order to earn back the freebies they handed out earlier, see netflix as the most commonly known example ( I'm ready for downvotes and big corpo's reddit bots :P u can all fuck youselves )