So, I am writing down my home configuration by showing the children of each hub in my system.
Every accessory shows up except for my 3 contact sensors (Sensor P2). Why don’t they show up under any hub? Thanks!
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The P2 are Thread devices and those, for some reason, are not shown as directly connected to the hub. It’s probably because of the way how Matter works - Matter devices like the P2 can be connected to many ecosystems/hubs at once (Zigbee devices can be only connected to one network/hub).
So it isn’t on the list because it’s not an exclusive pairing and the hub doesn’t expose Matter devices (like P2) to other ecosystems (it’s the responsibility of the device). But as long as those sensors work, everything is ok
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Thank you! That makes sense.
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Following up so that I understand, all of my other Aqara devices are presented to Apple Home as Matter devices but they have no thread support. Is that correct?
BTW, the P2 sensors are working great in my setup (after I enabled IP V6 on my router).
Finally, I got an email saying that this question was answered in another thread. I had looked for a search function before I posted but couldn’t find it. Where do Find that?
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Most of the Aqara devices are Zigbee devices (or offer Zigbee and Thread mode). There are a few Matter only devices like locks and P2 sensors. Zigbee is a protocol that works by creating a Zigbee network per hub/ecosystem and Zigbee devices can be paired only with one hub (one Zigbee network).
In this case, the responsibility of integrating/sharing the devices is on the hub. The hub can act as a bridge and thanks to ecosystem integration, it can join a Matter ecosystem and expose your Zigbee devices as Matter devices. In this case it acts like a proxy and just tells the other Matter ecosystem “those are my devices, if you want to use them, talk to me, and in return, I’ll tell you everything about them”.
Aqara’s Matter devices (the ones with Matter logo) can work in two ways: they can either join the WiFi and work via WiFi or they can join a Thread network (Thread uses less power).
Nevertheless, if the end device (like this sensor) works via Matter directly, it can connect to many hubs and it can be controlled by either of them directly. The Matter standard is the same, no matter the ecosystem. There is no exclusivity and the Thread network can also be shared by many ecosystems.
Note: Because Matter is a standard that allows the device to talk to any ecosystem, it has to be followed strictly. Any Aqara device with choice of Zigbee and Matter/Thread will offer more features in Zigbee mode, because Thread mode will always follow the standard and thus, will lack non-standard configuration and features
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If you want to dive a little deeper into the topic, feel free to check out my guide:
And if the Matter sensors ever lose their connection, you’ll find a solution for that issue there as well.
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I am really glad you are here. Your explanations are very clear and helpful. I understand how Zigbee is less limited since it isn’t forced to follow strict protocols. It reminds me of Java vs say, C++ where Java has more limitations because it has to work everywhere.
Thanks again!
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Thanks JohnD, I’m working my way through it.
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Haha, right, it’s always a matter of balance between more control over the thing (but it means more resources to support it, and the adaptation may be less than profitable) and between opening to some interoperable standard.
But the downside - some people will just buy one product and never go back to you (which means less profit thus less innovations), or your company will be blamed for the problems of the other ecosystem.
And the answer is not always very obvious, even from the perspective of the consumer, as you can see.
Btw I’m a dev myself and actually the thing about the Java vs C++ is a very deep topic for another discussion haha. The adaptation of Java is actually not smaller than C++, they are just used for other things and Java is “less visible” for the end user on the market (you can see how much Java is used by the job offers).
Not elaborating on the specific history of both languages, both are Turing complete and thus both are capable of the same things actually! It’s just a matter of support, as the existing libraries, ease of setup and language grammar just makes it easier to use one language or the other for some use cases.
Personally I think the language is just a tool, and the debate “this language is better than the other” is just plain dumb, as different experts use different tools - so just use the language that is easier for you to use. Because if you don’t fight with the language, you can focus on the actual implementation. When we choose a “better tool” then we choose the one that is more comfortable for the job, not the more feature packed. I won’t use the excavator when I can just use the shovel to plant my plants in the garden, and I won’t use the shovel when I need to lay pipes for the whole neighborhood.
The whole propaganda of “this language is better than the other” just misses the point and is counterproductive. Sometimes you need Java, sometimes C++, sometimes bash or C and sometimes PHP if it does the job
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