I’m looking to add Thread/Matter to my existing setup (Pi4 running HA, Sonoff Zigbee controller/Zigbee2MQTT, Zooz Z-wave controller) in order to try out Ikea’s new Matter switches. I have been doing a little bit of reading on Thread and Matter but I’m not sure which controller/hub would be best with my current setup.
It appears that a lot of these hubs include Zigbee and wifi radios, so would that interfere with my current Zigbee controller/network and/or wifi network (Pi is right next to my Wifi router)?
Secondly, is there a feature difference between different controllers? I saw the Aqara M100 as an inexpensive option, but I want to be sure it fully supports the feature of the BILRESA switches as I’d like to use the scroll wheels to control the brightness of my lights. Other options I saw were the Google Nest and Apple 4KTV, but I’d rather not use a Google product and don’t have any Apple products in the house. I don’t have a hard budget, but would of course prefer not to spend money that isn’t necessary
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Matter devices should be able to use your current wifi if that’s their network. Otherwise it would use thread similar to Zigbee. I’ve only looked at the ZBT2 as a thread router for connectivity to home assistant so I don’t have a lot of experience here yet with thread but I’ve been using Zigbee for years. Yes thread or Zigbee can interfere with 2.4ghz wifi as they’re in the same band, but my experience is the opposite: wifi has a bigger effect on them then they do on wifi. Zigbee and thread are designed for low power devices so they’re easy to drown out.
I don’t know if there’s a feature difference but I don’t think there should be. I’ve used matter devices on my wifi with no issues and didn’t need a separate router, and when I pick up a thread device I’ll use a zbt2 as the hub.