Matter and Thread

Questions & Help
1

I am trying to diagnose connection issues on what I think are Matter over Wifi devices, 3 Govee Lights and a Switchbot Matter Bridge.

The pairing seems very hit and miss and it is getting difficult to diagnose. All of these devices connect to Apple Homekit super easy.

The three lights are being paired via Apple Home two of them are connected OK, one first time and one failed following setup to connect back to the device and the device not completing. It now has the thread issue same as the Switchbot device, same as the third light.

The Switchbot Matter Bridge was originally connect to Homey direct but following drop outs was unpaired and pairing attempted again. It first of all got found and was in use for 3 days until a couple of devices (not all) fell off then it just fails following setup to connect back to the device and the device never completes. Now it has the thread issue below.

The Thread issue is now persistent. When I try to add any Matter devices (via iPhone or iPad) I get the following error message before attempting a connection.

image
image1206×2622 187 KB

I am not an expert on Matter and thread but I don’t understand why it is attempting to connect via thread and given that this is a hardwired mini pro why wifi matters, except as a temporary step for the iPhone. When I look under the Homey’s thread setting it says it is unavailable if my iPhone is on a 2.4ghz wifi but available if it is on a 5ghz. If I switch to this mode I get a connection issue.

I believe the Gove lamps and Switchbot expect a 2.4ghz network.

so is Homey assuming under circumstance that it will only connect to Matter via Wifi and ignoring the hard wired network that exists. How can Apple Homekit connect so easily when it is on the same network?

2

Maybe you can link the SwitchBot Hub via the SwitchBot app instead?

Govee lights should work with this app:

You don’t need to use the (quite unstable) Matter protocol to connect them when using these apps.

3

Unfortunately with the Switchbot I can’t use BLE as I am on a Mini Pro and.i don’t want to be reliant on cloud services for stuff like presence sensing.

As a temporary hack I use virtual devices and virtual sensors to allow Apple Homekit to connect, flag to Homey and use the zone active function in Homey for occupancy, not very elegant but it works.

As someone who has used Homey for less than a week I was trying to see if it was something I had done causing the connection issue. It doesn’t make sense to me, so I thought I might have my logic wrong and wanted to get back to a ‘proper’ solution.

I will give the Govee app a look, many thanks.