Matter + Home Assistant Quick Start Guide
Before we get started, if you aren’t familiar with Matter, Thread and Home Assistant, you’ll want to check out the last video I did in this series which explains all that – which will be linked in the cards above for you to check out. Right, with that out the way, let’s get this stuff set up. To be clear, I’m covering the process of setting up Matter over Thread devices as that’s the more complicated route – and the route I personally recommend. Setting up Matter over WiFi is generally easier, and mostly it’s the same process anyway, so you shouldn’t have much trouble getting that set up.
The first step for setting these up is to create a Thread Border Router. If you have an existing smart hub that will do that for you – for example an Apple TV or a Samsung SmartThings Station – you can connect via those hubs, but since I’m the sort of person who likes to overcomplicate things and have total control over my smart home tech, I’ll be using this Zigbee dongle from Sonoff. In short, because Zigbee and Thread share the same base standard, 802.15.4, with the right firmware this dongle can actually do both Zigbee and Thread connectivity at the same time. You’ll need the ZBDongle-E which is based on the EFR32MG21 chip, not the CC2652P based dongle that looks identical to this one. Then head to Darkxst’s Silabs Firmware Flasher website, click on the ZBDongle-E option, then connect to it. You should then get some options for flashing either Zigbee, OpenThread, or MultiPAN. I recommend MultiPAN as this will let you connect to both Zigbee and Thread devices simultaneously with what seems like very little downsides. If you are having trouble by the way, you might need to install the CP210x drivers and try again, and unfortunately you’ll need to use Chrome or Edge for this – Firefox won’t work.
Once you have the dongle flashed, you can plug it into your Home Assistant system, then you’ll need to head to the Add On store and install the Silicon Labs Multi-protocol addon. Head to the configuration tab, select the dongle from the list, set the baud rate to 460800, disable Hardware flow control, automatically flash firmware and co-processor communication tracing, and make sure the Enable OpenThread Border Router is on, then hit save. Head back to the Info tab and hit start. All being well it’ll start as normal and you can now head to Settings, Devices & Integrations, then add the Thread and OpenThread Border Router options, and Matter. When you go to set up the Thread integration, you’ll pick the Silicon Labs Multiprotocol option for the border router, then you’re pretty much set.
Adding Matter devices requires a mobile device to scan the QR code and do the actual pairing process. It’s pretty easy, just head to the devices tab and add a Matter device. Scan the QR code on the device – with it powered on – then let it do its thing. It’ll take a minute or two in all, but once it’s done that’s it connected. For the NanoLeaf Essentials bulb, while it did run through the connection process just fine, it failed to actually connect to Home Assistant. I had to do the reset process, which is just… painful. You turn the bulb off for three seconds, then on for no more than a second, then repeat that five times, where you leave it on and the bulb flashes red to show you it’s reset. Then I just scanned the code again and it worked fine.
It’s worth noting that for something like the EVE smart plug I have here, this currently only exposes the power switch function to Home Assistant, not any of the power monitoring. I’m hoping that they’ll offer a firmware update to support that properly, but I can’t be sure. The NanoLeaf bulb works great though, both for RGB control, and the cool white/warm white LEDs in there too. It isn’t the absolute brightest, but it’s a pretty decent choice and not too heinously expensive for a smart bulb.
One thing I want to note here is that not all Thread devices are Matter devices. This Onvis H2 Smart Switch is a HomeKit over Thread device, and while in theory that might work via the HomeKit integration – currently it doesn’t. That’s a shame because it looks like a great bit of kit. It comes with this magnetic base you can screw or stick to a surface, then the remote just clicks into it. You can then just pick the remote up and move it around, but still have somewhere to put it back when you want to store it. That’s a really cool design – plus it has five buttons which you can map to a bunch of different things, and it even comes with a little sticker pack so you know what each button does. It’s just a shame I can’t get it to work without an Apple TV or HomePod!
So, that’s how to set up Matter devices in Home Assistant. It’s remarkably simple and barring a few hiccups, it’s been pretty smooth, at least for the two devices I have access to. The number of devices – especially Matter over Thread devices – is remarkably small right now, so if I was building a smart home system right now, I’d still likely stick with Zigbee – although I would grab this ZBDongle-E and flash the Multi-Pan firmware so it’s more futureproof.
