this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
1 points (100.0% liked)

Home Automation

79 readers
2 users here now

Home automation is the residential extension of building automation.

It is automation of the home, housework or household activity.

Home automation may include centralized control of lighting, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), appliances, security locks of gates and doors and other systems, to provide improved convenience, comfort, energy efficiency and security.

Warning: Working with electricity can result in injury, property damage, or even death if it is not done properly. Please keep this in mind while assisting others. If you are not sure about what you are doing, hire a licensed professional.

Rules

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Hello,

I'm looking for an in-wall adapter to transform my light switches to be Matter compatible. The device needs to:

  • be Matter compatible
  • communicate over Thread
  • fit in wall behind the regular light switch

So far I could only find these Matter over WiFi devices:

Is there anything available that communicates over Thread? Anything announced but still in works?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] kigmatzomat@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

It is highly unlikely you will get such a device in less than 3 years for the simple reason that it has a constant power supply greater than 2 watts. In that scenario, it should either be wifi for the range or act as a wifi/thread bridge (aka border router) to augment the thread mesh without the homeowner needing to worry about their existing mesh*. In either case, control would happen over wifi.

The CSA (Matter management group) needs to increase the number of wifi/thread bridges on the market to make battery-powered Thread-only devices viable. This is a greater priority than having mains-powered Matter devices that can only act as thread relays.

*Thread relays have the same issue as zwave/zigbee relays: you have to daisy chain them across your home to extend the mesh contiguously. This means some people need to put relays in places they don't need any functionality other than to be a range extender. With wifi/thread bridges you can use wifi's orders of magnitude greater power budget to extend the Thread network in a non-contiguous fashion.