Hello y‘all,
at the moment I have all Aqara devices (which have multi protocol support, like Switch H2, W600 and so on) connected via Zigbee.
I’m wondering what users prefer. Do you like Matter over thread better than zigbee, even with the limitations or do you prefer zigbee?
Are there any „performance“ improvements with one or the other for you?
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Most Aqara devices offer more features in Zigbee mode, so I use Zigbee. Thread is only useful if you want to connect the devices to other ecosystems without any proxies (I mean Aqara hubs).
I have an M3 hub so my devices are exposed as Matter to other ecosystems anyway
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I prefer the big Z at the moment but… I admit I’ve been adding more Thread devices than Zigbee over the last 6 months. Thread has been working very well with zero issues (knock on wood).
In 2026 I’m most likely going to continue adding new Thread devices over Zigbee unless I am just replacing a bad Zigbee device that shot craps or something.
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I don’t use any “big tech” eco-systems and have everything locally controlled through Home Assistant, including local voice control, so I personally don’t feel there’s currently much benefit to Thread/Matter for me seeing as Zigbee device variants are usually more feature rich than their Matter equivalents.
I have a dual radio Zigbee/Thread coordinator but haven’t really found much need for the Thread side of it. I’m sure it’ll change in the future as the Matter protocol matures, but then again let’s see what Zigbee 4.0 brings to the table once it’s out.
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Thank you for your quick reply already! @absent @srl77411 @cezary806
Feature wise zigbee has more to offer as matter is very limited unfortunately. I mean the basic functions are available but zigbee is beneficial for fine tuning the devices. However I’m pretty tempted to step more into matter/thread.
But binding the devices via matter to Home Assistant, Aqara Home and Apple Home is kind of annoying as it means to bind every device three times but that’s how it works and what it’s for i guess 
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My M3 automatically adds all my Zigbee devices via Matter (it acts as a Matter bridge) and I don’t need to pair them again, so that’s a big plus. But unfortunately the names are not propagated and at first it was not a problem, but it was a huge disadvantage when I paired 12 bulbs in Aqara home and went to Apple Home to see I need to identify and name all the bulbs again
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Hi @denis.w - I like also Zigbee much more!
More features and reliability is also better in my opinion.
And with the M3 hub you have also the opportunity to act with the added zigbee device in Matter
If Matter once has more opportunities then I would maybe consider about a change
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The decision usually comes down to features. If you already have an Aqara hub, Zigbee is an easy choice. In most cases the thread versions of the firmware on these dual devices is much more limited compared to zigbee. That is because there are no custom characteristics in thread yet (Aqara has mentioned they are experimenting with it). Otherwise, I have no reliability issues with my thread network.
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Thank you for you input on this. I think you all convinced me to stick with zigbee a little longer until matter evolves and offers more
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I had most of my device communicating by matter over thread to apple home and Aqara M3 hub, but they would flake out after a day or two. Apparently Aqara devices have a problem with matter over thread multi-admin so I switched most of mine to zigbee or have them paired only with Apple Home
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Quick update, I disabled by Eero thread network and everything is working well
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If they support Matter over Thread and Zigbee, I always go with Matter over Thread. Main reason is that I have an Apple Home.
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Yes now that I have my Thread network I am using Apple Home and Homey together. I use Homey for the automatiosn and Apple Home for Siri Control
If you use an Aqra hub you only have to import that hub to HA (or qhatever) once and any child devices paired to that hub get transfered over.
So if you use Zigbee between device and hub you get the full feature list of the device. Then the Hub bridgs that set of features over Matter.
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That’s not quite true. You get the full feature list in the Aqara App and if you then use Matter you may get a reduced feature list even compared to using Matter natively.
E.g. I recently added the H2 Wall Outlet via Matter natively and I could see power. When I added it to the Aqara M3 and then bridged it to Matter I could not see the power.
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At the lowest levels, Thread and Zigbee are the same. Both use the same IEEE 802.15.4 standard. So the PHY and MAC network layers are the same. So you might expect the exact same range and data bit-rate speeds. If Zigbee can go through walls or not, then Thread can or cannot. Same radios. The big difference is at the higher layers. Thread is an IP network that can be bridged onto Ethernet or Wi-Fi via a Border Router. From a practical standpoint, I think there are more Zigbee devices, but Zigbee is the “wild west,” and not all brands of Zigbee can talk reliably. But if you stick with just one brand, you are OK. I think most of us will have to run two networks or even three. In my case, I have an Aqara-Zigbee and a Hue-Zigbee that don’t talk to each other and a Thread network. We will just have to do this for the next few years. Choosing just one is too limiting.
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Ouch! That’s not funny that the names are not populated… sigh… double work and room for error