I bought multiple Aqara devices, including two M3 hubs, recently. Everything’s working good except for my 3 Aqara P2 Motion Sensors that uses Matter for it’s connection.
My M3 hubs are installed at two ends (i.e. south and west) of my house with south M3 hub being configured as the primary Matter controller.
One of the P2 sensor is located near the south M3 hub, whereas the remaining two P2 sensors are located near the west M3 hub.
The issue I’m experiencing now is that the two P2 sensors near west M3 hub would occasionally disconnect with the error message ‘Device cannot connect to primary matter controller’.
It seems to me that all Matter-enabled devices will only choose to connect to my south M3 hub (designated as primary) even if there is another hub closer to it?
Aren’t M3 hubs supposed to work as a cluster? Am I missing something here?
How can I pair different Matter devices to different M3 hub like what I do for zigbee devices?
@Loftystew Thank you for sharing your experience with the Aqara M3 hubs and the P2 Motion Sensors. It sounds like you’re dealing with an interesting setup challenge.
The Aqara Hub M3 is designed to act as a leading hub, forming a cluster with other hubs to enhance your smart home experience. However, when it comes to Matter devices, there are some specifics to consider. The M3 hubs do indeed function as a cluster, but the designation of a primary Matter controller means that all Matter-enabled devices will connect to the specified primary hub, in this case, your south M3 hub.
Unfortunately, unlike Zigbee devices where you can easily pair different devices to different hubs, Matter devices rely on a single primary controller for their connection. This is likely why your P2 sensors near the west hub are attempting to connect to the south hub, causing occasional disconnections due to distance or interference.
To potentially improve connectivity, ensure that all hubs and devices are on the same local network and consider repositioning the hubs or adjusting the network settings to support better communication. Additionally, you might want to check that your network supports IPv6, as it is required for Matter devices. If issues persist, restarting both the hubs and sensors might help stabilize the connection. Please feel free to share more insights or questions, as community collaboration might uncover more tailored solutions!
Thank you for reaching out! Actually, regardless of which M3 Hub is set as the primary Matter controller, all Thread-enabled devices within your home share the same Thread mesh network. This means that any Thread device (such as your P2 Motion Sensors) can communicate through any available Thread Router—in your case, either the south or west M3 Hub. The designated primary Matter controller is mainly responsible for local automation and enabling Matter devices to support Remote Access.
From your description, it sounds like the issue may be related to the P2 sensors near the west M3 hub having difficulty maintaining a stable connection with the nearest Thread Router. This could be due to weak signal strength or physical interference, rather than the role of the primary controller.
Currently, Matter supports only one active Thread network per home. However, we are planning to introduce support in the upcoming app iterations for managing multiple Thread networks within the same home. Once that’s available, you’ll be able to pair different Matter devices to different M3 Hubs—similar to how you manage Zigbee devices.
Does this mean multiple Thread networks promoted by all available Hubs which fail over to remaining hubs in case of partly down time of a given hub? Or will the maximum be a single Thread network per hub where each available hub can promote its own unique network?
It’s up to you, by default, all the devices are using a same Thread network. this is what we highly
recommend, because all the thread devices can benefit from the Thread infrastructure . you will be able to assign some of the hubs to Thread Network A, and the others to Thread Network B.
