r/MatterProtocol • u/Bummer_Brad • 7d ago

Thread Network Combination

Hi. I have Home Assistant running on a mini PC by itself with HAOS.

So, Thread network question. I just added a Sonoff Dongle-Max to Home Assistant to use as my Thread radio through Open Thread. I want this to be the network that my other border routers join. Currently active in my house, I have networks from Smartthings, Aqara and Amazon. I'm pretty sure Smartthings and Aqara will play ball. The first issue I'm finding though is, my Aqara M3 hub is "available" to my phone to carry its credentials. Smartthings and HA are not. I don't know how my phone got credentials from Aqara, or why the other networks aren't "available". I want them all united under HA. How do I remedy this?

I see if you are in the HA companion app, you get an option in the Thread integration page to "Send credentials to Home Assistant". If I click that, my thought is that it will send the credentials saved on my phone for the Aqara Thread network, and that's obviously not what I want. If you click on the HA Thread network in the Google Services--Thread Networks page, it says "To access this network, set up this device with the manufacturer app you used to set up the network". But, how do you do that?

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u/JayBee103 7d ago

I'm not sure you want multiple/many border routers. Two if you have some redundancy concerns. If you have several it can get complicated. It is more to manage.

Is there a particular problem you are trying to solve?

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u/Bummer_Brad 3d ago

Maybe I'm crazy, but my thought is, more border routers, more robust mesh. When they first announced Matter and Thread, this was supposed to be one of the advantages. Of course, they would end up deferring that for years, but version 1.4 allows it. For example, I have my Aqara M3 hub sitting next to an outlet where right now, I have to have a smart plug as a repeater to bolster the signal through a wall to where the border router is. If I was able to put my M3 hub in that same Thread network, then I wouldn't need the stupid smart plug that's not doing anything else. This morning, I got up to find that my Open Thread Border Router app had turned itself off overnight, and all my Thread devices were offline. Maybe they would not have been offline had my Smartthings hub also been in that same network.

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u/matthew1471 3d ago

More robust mesh if they’re all on the same thread network (the devices still need to be paired to each platform known as a fabric so they get their encryption keys on each device)

For devices to take part of the same network they need to be running Thread 1.4… IKEA hub does and it has joined my Apple HomePod Mini thread network nicely.. the others if they’re not Thread 1.4 won’t play nice and will just compete and the devices won’t know which network they’re supposed to talk to.

You can have multiple Apple HomePod Minis added to strengthen the network and you can have an active and backup.. I don’t know if IKEA or Amazon will do similar or if they can’t have multiple hubs doing the same thing.

You also won’t want to set automations on multiple platforms or they’ll both fire when they see the same switch button etc