IKEA Ditches Zigbee For Thread Going All In On Matter Smart Homes (theverge.com) 44
IKEA is relaunching its smart home line with over 20 new Matter-over-Thread devices that will work across ecosystems such as Apple Home and Amazon Alexa, with or without IKEA's own hub. This marks a major shift toward openness, affordability, and interoperability, and positions IKEA as one of the first major retailers to bring Matter to the mainstream while maintaining backward compatibility with Zigbee products. The Verge reports: We don't have a lot of details on the over 20 new devices coming next year, but [David Granath of IKEA of Sweden] confirmed that they are replacing existing functions. So, new smart bulbs, plugs, sensors, remotes, buttons, and air-quality devices, including temperature and humidity monitors. They will also come with a new design. Although "not necessarily what's been leaked," says Granath, referring to images of the Bilresa Dual Button that appeared earlier this year. He did confirm that some new product categories will arrive in January, with more to follow in April and beyond, including potentially Matter-over-Wi-Fi products. Pricing will be comparable to or lower than that of previous products, which start under $10. "Affordability remains a key priority for us."
"The premium to make a product smart is not that high anymore, so you can expect new product types and form factors coming," he says. "Matter unlocks interoperability, ease of use, and affordability for us. The standardization process means more companies are sharing the workload of developing for this." Despite the move away from Zigbee, IKEA is keeping Zigbee's Touchlink functionality. This point-to-point protocol allows devices to be paired directly to each other and work together out of the box, without an app or hub -- such as the bulb and remote bundles IKEA sells. This means older Zigbee remotes can control the newer Thread bulbs and vice versa, retaining backward compatibility with its Tradfri line. "Touchlink and Matter will coexist in new products," says Granath. "It's still very important for IKEA -- not everyone wants an app or hub."
Interestingly, IKEA's new Matter-over-Thread products will also work without the IKEA hub or app, as they can be set up directly in any compatible Matter smart home ecosystem, such as Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, Home Assistant, and others.
"The premium to make a product smart is not that high anymore, so you can expect new product types and form factors coming," he says. "Matter unlocks interoperability, ease of use, and affordability for us. The standardization process means more companies are sharing the workload of developing for this." Despite the move away from Zigbee, IKEA is keeping Zigbee's Touchlink functionality. This point-to-point protocol allows devices to be paired directly to each other and work together out of the box, without an app or hub -- such as the bulb and remote bundles IKEA sells. This means older Zigbee remotes can control the newer Thread bulbs and vice versa, retaining backward compatibility with its Tradfri line. "Touchlink and Matter will coexist in new products," says Granath. "It's still very important for IKEA -- not everyone wants an app or hub."
Interestingly, IKEA's new Matter-over-Thread products will also work without the IKEA hub or app, as they can be set up directly in any compatible Matter smart home ecosystem, such as Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, Home Assistant, and others.
No (Score:4, Insightful)
The answer is still - *no*
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Cheap furniture but quality IOT? (Score:1)
...Unlikely. I don't want Putin controlling my massage chair, Thank You.
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Putin is not the ruler of Sweden
Yet.
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...Unlikely. I don't want Putin controlling my massage chair, Thank You.
So don't connect it to the internet! It is right above in the summary - these things can talk directly to one another.
You can even run a server at home, making it easy to add smarts, all isolated from the internet if you like.
Unlike wifi devices such as Tuya which generally require an internet connection and remote server to work.
Perhaps we need to rename in LANoT for you?
Thread good (Score:4, Interesting)
Sounds good. Thread is available for anyone and is a mesh, so the more you deploy, the healthier the network becomes. Matter gives actual security, not "you can't easily get to the network so we assume it's safe". And it all works locally, without needing to talk outside your house. Plus, matter + thread controllers/routers are available in all Amazon/Apple/Google controllers, so you don't need Yet More Random Devices to make things work.
If you don't want smart devices in your house, no worries. Please stop moaning and whining every time they are mentioned; we know. And the world has so many real problems that we don't have the bandwidth to listen to problems solved by "well, I won't install any and I'll shut the fuck up." But if you do want convenient control over your house, and are willing to trade off some security for some functionality, this is an improvement.
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Apparently you don't because they are the largest threat on the internet and yet people like you keep buying them.
Zigbee and Thread are local-only networking protocols. There is no mechanism for Zigbee or Thread devices to communicate to the internet. They can talk locally to a device that's connected to the internet, but they can't directly connect to the internet any more than your USB keyboard can. Actually less than that, since USB networking is a thing, although unlikely to be supported by any keyboard.
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The wikipedia article for Thread suggests that Thread devices are ip addressable and have cloud access. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. Their own website says the same. https://www.threadgroup.org/BU... [threadgroup.org]
To wit:
As an IP-based open standard, Thread allows home automation devices such as lighting, thermostats, door locks, sensors and smart speakers to securely, reliably and simply integrate into the smart home and connect directly to the cloud.
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And the key word is *allows*. For a Thread device to connect to the internet, it needs a border router which connects it to the home network, which in turn may be connected to internet, which in turn may allow devices to use cloud services if they're designed to do so. You can prevent that if you want, but Thread doesn't require devices to function without an internet connection any more than W
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Oh, dear God, you missed the class on the OSI model, TCP/IP, class v classless addressing, and Ethernet. If you get a chance, take the class on aliases...
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they are the largest threat on the internet
Tell us you don't know about Matter and Threads without telling us. Hint: The internet has nothing to do with it. These devices don't connect to the internet. You need a specific and completely optional bridging device for that, and then that bridging device is the only threat.
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As others have said, Thread is IPv6 so it is theoretically addressable from the Internet (though current border devices don't allow that). But since "protected subnet" is not the primary security mechanism for Matter, we'll likely avoid Skynet Over Thread.
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There is this fantasy that addressability was a security mechanism. People seem to forget that fundamentally the function that makes NAT work is the same function at all firewalls already have. Addressability means nothing when all routers are configured with session based packet filtering by default - and I've yet to come across one which isn't since it would imply that their IPv4 firewall and IPv6 firewall are fundamentally configured differently out of the box which would be insanely confusing for the co
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I actually look at the issue the other way around : how hard is it to keep a Matter network off the internet? Considering the amount of potential bridge devices, it turns out it might be very hard...
Just connect your phone to the Matter network, and bam, all the devices might be able to access the internet. Doesn't mean "are accessible from the internet", just means they can "phone home" .
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If I understand you, you believe that IoT is the biggest threat on the internet? Uh, no, the internet has way worse threats. And you think that I hurt your security by installing them?
So, I think that you are terrified of things you don't understand, and "things you don't understand" includes most technical issues. So, you screech and whine loudly about those things. "Ignorance and prejudice and fear walk hand in hand". Also "those who know what's best for us must rise and save us from ourselves." And
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> Thread is available for anyone
No, it is not.
You're not allowed to build devices using it, unless you become a member of the Thread group ( cheapest is $7500/year).
If you create a device by yourself, you're opening yourself up to legal action.* [1]
Not to mention certified devices "might" refuse to talk to your uncertified device, because PKI is involved, and guess who holds the Private keys? The Thread/Matter group.[2]
Matter/Thread is corpoware, not made for people.
[1] https://overengineer.dev/blog/... [overengineer.dev]
[
Zigbee sucks... (Score:2)
I have mixed reviews of Zigbee. It sorta works, but doesn't like stucco walls. But at least it's not Internet addressable. Once you've moved to something running IPv6, you might as well just throw things on WiFi.
T
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I know it doesn't taste the same as the wall candy from your childhood, but maybe you should have gone with the lead-free stucco.
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I know it doesn't taste the same as the wall candy from your childhood, but maybe you should have gone with the lead-free stucco.
Wall candy nothing... I'm so old my wooden crib was painted with lead paint. That stuff was everywhere around the SF Bay. Heck CP/M-86 probably failed because of lead neurotoxicity. How do you think we got M$-DOh$...
But seriously... I didn't expect to have to be on the lookout for lead paints in my kids toys. But 20 years ago they shipped a bunch of wooden toy trains in with red paint containing lead. Big recall... It was hard to explain to a 2 year old. So if you ever manage to kiss a girl and she ta
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Addressable does not mean accessible.
IPv6 has link-local addresses which are unroutable outside of the local segment. Plus firewalls and VLANs exist so you can limit access however you want.
This is a _LOT_ better than the typical device that connects to someone else's hosted server that you have absolutely no control over.
Huh Apple already there? (Score:2)
Do not do it (Score:1)
All this "smart home" tech has nowhere even remotely the lifetime of an average house.
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To be fair they probably meant the protocol, but even then many houses have been rewired for phone, then ethernet, and maybe fibre now. In the UK a lot of homes had central heating retrofitted.
With Matter and Threads, since they are open protocols you can expect very long term support. Even if Google and all the other companies drop it, open source implementations already exist.
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Even with WiFi, I've upgraded through multiple generations. Old houses are often a pain to get signal around too, hence the popularity of repeaters (which all add latency).
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With a completely different system?
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In terms of protocols, I've already got several protocols running in my house and they mix and match without issue. Gradually switching over to emphasises one of them (Matter/Thread) more than the others won't affe
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Oh, sure, if you can actually administrate or even code for your system, you are not at risk. But that will be 1% of the users.
Re:Do not do it (Score:4)
Who cares. Nothing in the house has the lifetime of a house. People are constantly renovating and rebuilding, repainting, replacing lightbulbs, changing fittings, replacing entire bathrooms and kitchens every decade or two.
No one is expecting any of this stuff to last the lifetime of the structure. The only part of a house that is expected to last the lifetime of an average house is the external walls and supporting internal walls. Yes I didn't mention the roof for a reason, that also has a limited lifetime compared to the average house.
Stop being unreasonable.
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Who cares. Nothing in the house has the lifetime of a house. People are constantly renovating and rebuilding, repainting, replacing lightbulbs, changing fittings, replacing entire bathrooms and kitchens every decade or two.
Only if you do a shoddy job in the first place. But maybe that is your preferred approach?
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Only if you do a shoddy job in the first place. But maybe that is your preferred approach?
That is absolutely false. Not only from a construction point of view - unless you're building your roof from slate rock in which case your biggest problem is likely heritage listing, but also from an aesthetic point of view. Many people don't change things because they haven't lasted through the ages or were built poorly, they change it because styles change, times changes, and they want to refresh something.
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Neither does a water heater, or a light bulb. Dead end technologies all.
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bulbs are easy to replace.
water heaters are made to be replaced and to die early and planned to handle leaks.
A smart home network is not easily changed; unlike power or water it lacked universal standards. Adapters between copper and PEX piping exist. These networks will need smart adapters... but really we shouldn't need transitions at least as far as the wires.
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Plumbing doesn't have universal standards either. You said it: "Adapters between copper and PEX piping exist."
My grandparents' place had aluminum wiring. You have to be a bit careful combining that with regular copper. Adapters exist.
There's some wifi smart home stuff, and there's some old 310/433 MHz X10 stuff, but the vast majority, including zigbee and thread, are based on IEEE 802.15.4, which, if you're familiar with computer stuff, you might strongly suspect is a standard. It's not a new one either, it
"Interestingly" (Score:4, Insightful)
What the heck is "interestingly" about the devices not requiring an IKEA hub. That was THE WHOLE POINT OF MATTER AND THREADS! Being device and vendor agnostic is the whole purpose Matter and Threads exists. This isn't an interesting feature, it's an essential minimum requirement for adopting the standard.
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Many people did Matter as "take our Zigbee kit, run it through yet another hub, and we'll push it out the other side as Matter". Not ideal.
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Indeed, but then there is nothing improper about that really. None of the Switchbot devices on the website are advertised as supporting Matter except for the hub. This is perfectly okay. On the other hand IKEA say it is ditching Zigbee for this. Otherwise this wouldn't be news, IKEA has had a Matter hub since last year already.
Mixed feelings (Score:1)
While matter and thread have been around for a couple of years now, I would deem that they are still in their infancy. It is likely that problems that were previous