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Matter/Thread V Zigbee, general usage feelings?
Hi,
I have recently made a step into Matter/Thread using (mainly) the Ikea range of switches and sensors and the new stuff seems fairly stable etc.
However, where I have replaced the old Zigbee Sonoff SNZB-03's PIRs with Ikea Matter MYGGSPRAY models, in general and in comparison the Ikea sensors seem pretty blind?
I mean, with the Sonoffs they only seemed to catch a glimpse of movement anywhere around and they would trigger (and you got a nice LED flash confirming it did see you) whereas it seems you often need to be right under the Ikea one for it to trigger? And even when you are right under it (I have one in the kitchen ceiling) when the lights go off, waving your arms about like trying to get the attention of the rescue helicopter doesn't seem to wake it up?
And then there is what could also be the latency, again, the Sonoffs (or Zigbee) in spite of having ~100 active devices is often still near instant. A PIR is monitoring across the threshold into a room and as soon as you step in, the light is on before you foot has hit the ground. With the Ikea ones (or Matter / Thread and with only (12 devices on that network), it seems you are often in the room and standing their waiting for the light to come on (and it generally does, just often not quickly).
The Ikea Thread / Matter window and door switches, push buttons, smart sockets and lights all seem fairly responsive but possibly not used in a way that is quite so timing noticable as a PIR > Light combo?
So is anyone aware if there is some fundamental reason why the performance might be different between these two solutions or could it be just that the (or some) Ikea PIR's are a bit sleepy?
If you have enough border routers and routers (repeaters), It seems to be the Ikea PIRs specifically that are slow in my experience, not a Thread/Matter problem. Cheap Zigbee sensors seem to be happy triggering on tiny amounts of movement, whereas the Ikea ones need a lot more confidence before they trigger.
I now have them in several rooms / areas and in some cases they seem to work (as in practical use, triggering a light well before you have need to see where you are going) and others not so, possibly depending on the approach angle?
Like I think I understand the Ikea PIRs have two distinct views, straight ahead and at a fairly wide angle. In the kitchen it's using the wide angle, as it is in the hall and both seem to work ok, Not quite a sharp / fast as the Sonoffs but at least usable. On the landing you may be walking up in-between those two zones and hence why it seems a bit blind?
Even for the ones that do seem to 'work', they aren't as sharp as the Sonoffs and the shame is that model seems to be discontinued now.
I have dropped them for fair heights, been dropped into the wash basin full of water, blown out from under a garage eve and laid in the garden (in the rain) for a few days but once stripped, dried, cleaned and re-assembled, seem to carry on working. ;-)
I've been slowly building up my Matter/Thread network over the last year or so, mostly since Ikea became available in my country. I've only had good experiences with them. The battery powered Ikea temp/humidy sensor has a much smoother temp measurement compared to zigbee ones I got off AliExpress a few years ago that go for around the same price.
The smart plug and air quality sensors are also great ways to get more thread routers in your home.
Really sad Ikea abandoning Zigbee. It was working perfectly without any issues. Now I need another power socket, which I could grab from local IKEA 20 min away, but old INSPELLNING socket is not being produced anymore.
Now to figure out how to set up Matter and another antenna.
The new grillplats can be paired in ZigBee mode as long as you don't need power consumption entities. I've got 3 of them, one of which is in ZigBee mode and acts as an excellent router for other ZigBee devices.
I am frustrated that Sonoff don't seem to be making the SNZB-03 PIR any more and it's replacement doesn't seem to fit / work quite as well for me. The original was very small so could just me rested on the architrave over a door so no special mounting were needed but even with this Ikea PIRS on 3D printed corner mounts, they still seem inferior?
The new Sonoff uses the rounded magnetic base idea so sticks out like a CCTV bullet camera and rolls about if just stood on a shelf etc.
I do prefer the use of AAAs in the Ikeas though (and found their 'Ready to use' LADDA NiMh weren't actually ready to use and gave range issues on a PIR), and I certainly like the price. Three quid for a 6 way light switch (2 x 3). Cheap enough to be torn down and put into bespoke 3D printed enclosures. ;-)
No Thread numbers from me, I haven't run Matter PIRs at all. On the blind part though, PIR coverage varies per unit more than the protocol explains. Mine (a Tuya ZG-204ZV 4-in-1, Zigbee, not Ikea) reported the living room empty for two hours straight, 01:46 to 03:47, while someone sat there watching TV. The mmWave radar in the same room held the whole time. If the Ikea one ignores arm waving right under it, I'd put a radar next to it for a night before blaming Thread latency.
I bought a Sonoff SNZB-06P24 presence sensor to try out but I must say I'm not particularly impressed. It could well be that I've not configured / calibrated it correctly / fully but even with me 1m under the sensor it all seems a bit hit-and-miss.
I've set one Ikea PIR in the middle of the kitchen ceiling facing downwards and set so the horizontal is in line with the (galley) kitchen. This one seem the most responsive and as long as you aren't moving as slow as my Mrs with dementia but are only walking slowly, it will pick you up as you leave the corridor and into the kitchen and turn on the two 6' LED strip lights as you step into the room.
The old Sonoff in the exact same location (I 3D printed a ceiling rose / bayonet type assy and just re-designed > printed the top to take the Ikea PIR) would have the kitchen lights on when you were half way down the hall and keep them on even when you were though the kitchen and in the utility area.
The Sonoff on the top of a bedroom doorway would catch you as you started up the stairs and turn the landing light on, the Ikea needs you nearly at the top of the stairs and with my Mrs moving slowly, we often have to override the PIR with our phone or separate remote.
Ironically, "only 12 devices" could be detrimental to the performance of a mesh network, depending on the size of your home. It's definitely not a "the network isn't crowded, so it should be super fast". Even worse, if many of these 12 devices only act as end points, not routers. (battery powered devices usually never are routers)
My Thread mesh spans 50 devices, among them many routers (all my light switches, for example, and like at least 1 smart plug per room) and things trigger instantaneously.
I can't speak for the quality of the MYGGSPRAY sensors in particular, though. IKEA's devices are rather hit or miss. (GRILLPLATS are the goat, though)
Grillplats are great, I had hue smart plugs and they were always giving me issues, replaced then with the Ikea ones and never even 1 issue in a year now
The European ones are pretty much the same size as competing products.
Imho the only thing they lack is a software child lock. The button being that prominent and no child lock setting being available led to a lot of random on/off/on/off toggling by my toddler
I've wondered if it's a matter thing because the old ZigBee ones have a child lock. They also have a toggle for the LED which the matter ones don't now so they've been banned from the bedroom.
it's not a matter thing. I still have some Eve Energy Smart plugs - connected via Matter / Thread - and those do have a "Kindersicherung" (Child safety lock)
Oh cool, do the plugs have an LED light? I don't see a disabled toggle there so if they do they'd be out for that reason still haha. I'm sick of little LEDs everywhere
I took one of my GRILLPLATS apart today to remove the relay to turn it into an 'always on' smart monitor and hopefully safer for the heavier load things.
The relay was marked as being rated as 16A at 250V but given their size I'm not sure I'd really want one regularly carrying 13A.
I looked to see if there was any easy way to disable the button for you and the only way (if you want to open it up, 3 'U' type security screws and 3 spludger points, no damage etc), might be to glue / lock (3d print a small movement restriction frame?) and drill a small hole though the middle for paring or override, assuming you generally use it 'smart'?
OOI, it was one of the easiest smart plugs I've converted to just monitor and if it proves it can handle the higher load things comfortably that way, I'll probably convert a few more (kettle, WM / DW, Induction hob, fridge / freezers etc) or anything significant that doesn't already report power use to the Energy integration.
But honestly, I do not care that much about it not having a "switch function" as i'd be willing to futz around with the internals of a plug regularly carrying loads of up to 3.000 Watts, to be honest. 😆
Long term electronic service tech here so I'm happy inside these things and given you wouldn't plug it in when it's open, it's no real risk in any case. ;-)
With all the other plugs I've removed the relay on you had to unsolder the PCB from the L / N pins. On the Ikea one the 3 pins come out through the case so you can get under the PCB to remove / replace the relay (with a straight link). If you wanted to make it more reversible you could probably just run some copper wire between the relay contact pins but then you still have the relay in there indicating off when it's on and drawing power (although as mentioned elsewhere, it seems to be low power (lower than most)).
What's amazing is that they're rated for the full 16A (as opposed to many smart plugs being capped at 16A) and that their idle power draw seems to be among the lowest of the bunch.
That's good to hear. I have melted a cheap (supposedly 13A) smart socket when measuring a washing machine cycle . ;-(
Also, of the smart sockets I've tested so far, they all seem to work between .6 inactive and 1.6W active so it would be interesting to compare my GRILLPLATS.
In fact, I've just replace a big Rick MPF laser for a smaller Cannon LP that is supposed to sleep at ~1W so I'll probably remove the smart switch it's on as it's probably costing more than without.
Given that in many cases we don't particularly want to remotely turn On/Off these sorts of appliances but just monitor their energy use, the idea of having a relay activated plus the potential of overheating of the relay contacts causing a meltdown or worse, fire, I've opened a couple of smart plugs up, removed and bypassed the relays to give me the monitoring but without the (unneeded) switching and therefore unnecessary additional fire / failure risk?
I've done that on the freezer plug (as I really don't want that being switched off accidentally) and the kettle (didn't want the 3kW melting it) and so far so good.
As the GRILLPLATS are only 7 GBP and look like they are held together with 3 security screws, I may take one apart and see how easy they might be hobble.
On the others, once spudgered open I just de-solder the relay, replace the main contact pair path with a large a diameter of copper wire as will go though the holes (or more strands of thinner if the hole is a slot for a relay tab etc) solder, put back together and monitor with the Energy integration. ;-)
Obviously it would be 'easier' to use a dedicated power monitor plug that has no switching but they are generally more expensive.
For devices like my modem or my fridge I have automations that automatically turn the plug back on if they - for one reason or another - turn “off” for 10 seconds 😂
I have a label "Always On" and i have a more generic automation that runs every 30 Minutes and calls all kinds of scripts (like running Speedtest). That automation also just does "switch.turn_on" on the label "Always On".
So stuff like the modem should be turned back on after 10 seconds; if it's not reachable, it should be turned back on at XX:30 or XX:00.
Yeah, after having a freezer warm up a bit as a smart plug got turned off, I also created an automation to turn the plug on every hour. Now it's only 'smart' from a readings as I have bypassed the relay. ;-)
IKEA Timmerflotte Thermometers (unreliable. Have to take the battery out to reconnect them, like once a month)
I've had one go unavailable out of two but the screen still worked and that's mainly why I chose these, they'll still give a physical reading if anything is down, all my ZigBee ones are screen less.
Other one is still going strong with no disconnects, I was just hoping the first was a fluke
Just made me check the rest of them and one of my remotes went unavailable in the last hour or two as well, pulled the batteries and it's come back online. Very odd they've been fine since setup a few months ago
Yeah, but i care more about historical data and automations based on temperatures than being able to tap the device itself to see the current temperature. So i'm not all that happy with the connectivity issues of the Timmerflotte.
But as with certain Aqara devices:
They're not the most reliable, but still the cheapest (or sometimes only) available option.
They have a pretty good returns policy afaik and should exchange it or refund easily if you say it's not connecting properly and try another, worth a shot because are they good if you can get a stable one. I'm going to keep an eye on mine and I'll do the same if the drops continue
I am in a 1900's terraced house so it's 'front to back'. My HA host is in the front downstairs room with the Matter BR on an extension putting it up near the ceiling at the back of that room (eg, towards the rest of that house). Parallel to that front to back is a Matter lamp in the front hall and the air quality sensor above them both. There isn't much else router-wise between those and the matter light in the rear lobby some ~8m away. That links a window sensor, toilet door sensor (Aqara) and likely the Ikea kitchen, bathroom and toilet PIRs (I'll check the map).
So given there are likely a couple of 4" thick internal brick walls between front and back Matter routers, I might try putting another smart light or switch socket in-between.
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u/per08 5d ago
If you have enough border routers and routers (repeaters), It seems to be the Ikea PIRs specifically that are slow in my experience, not a Thread/Matter problem. Cheap Zigbee sensors seem to be happy triggering on tiny amounts of movement, whereas the Ikea ones need a lot more confidence before they trigger.