Not all Zigbees are created equal

August 15, 2025 | Comment

I said in a previous post that I had been getting into Home Assistant/automation and you should expect more posts – and here is the first!

Baby Steps

My introduction to home automation was, like many others I suspect, via the IKEA TRÅDFRI range of blubs and plugs. In order for these to work you needed a hub which joined them all together and allowed you to control them via an app. These devices all worked over the Zigbee protocol and worked well. Then, IKEA took the decision to discontinue the TRÅDFRI range and replace them new devices using the … Read the rest

What’s the Difference Between Matter and Thread?

July 27, 2025 | 1 comment

I’ve recently been getting into home automation and Home Assistant in particular (expect more posts on that as I get my head around it).

Words that frequently come up when dealing with home automation devices are Zigbee, Thread and Matter. I was familiar with Zigbee but was confused about Thread and Matter and how they worked together so I asked my friend ChatGPT to explain. I found it useful so decided to tidy it up and post it here.

What are Thread and Matter?

Thread and Matter are two of the latest smart home standards, often mentioned together, … Read the rest