@deejayreissue Once again, I’d kindly like to ask you to please stop spreading information that is either misleading or simply not true.
Both I and my colleagues in Support have explained to you multiple times, politely, that the issues you’re experiencing do not appear to be caused by a widespread underlying problem.
Just because you’re experiencing issues with Matter doesn’t automatically mean that someone else having Matter issues is running into the same underlying cause. While the symptoms may look similar, the root cause can be completely different. Please avoid presenting assumptions as facts, as that can easily mislead other users trying to troubleshoot their own issues.
That statement is far too simplistic. Matter is not the underlying radio protocol. It is an application-layer standard that runs over IP, typically using Thread, Wi-Fi, or Ethernet. Stability therefore depends heavily on the implementation, the border router, the network infrastructure, and the controller.
My Matter setup ran reliably for more than a year with Apple Home. I migrated to Homey because of Advanced Flows, not because Matter itself was unstable.
What I underestimated was Homey’s antenna design. Combining the radios behind one integrated internal antenna is a concept that is hardly used elsewhere today. Home Assistant originally produced the SkyConnect with both Zigbee and Thread support in one adapter, but now explicitly recommends using separate adapters instead.
So yes, Home Assistant currently offers the better antenna setup and, after several software releases, appears to have developed a stable and well-functioning Matter and Thread implementation. That does not prove that Matter itself is inherently unstable. It mainly shows how much the quality of the implementation and hardware matters.
I contact the support departments of different manufacturers quite regularly, and most of them provide actual follow-up. In the case of my Homey problem, I submitted a diagnostic report and was told that the power supply might be responsible because Homey had recorded power drops.
I therefore connected Homey first to an Anker 60 W USB-PD charger and later to a 300 W Evergreen power station with a 100 W USB-PD output. I also replaced the cable with a high-quality Thunderbolt cable. None of this solved the problem.
My support ticket has now been open for two months, and nobody has contacted me again. With other manufacturers, support usually follows up after a few days or weeks to ask whether the issue still exists, whether further assistance is required, or whether the ticket can be closed. Athom simply seems to leave the ticket untouched.
I also find it far too easy to keep looking for the cause exclusively on the user’s side. The same Matter devices and the same network worked reliably with Apple Home for more than a year. The problems started after migrating to Homey, while the network itself did not change.
Based on my experience, I cannot describe Athom’s support as particularly good. And the fact that the antenna design was not revised to use separate antennas is disappointing. The disadvantages of combining these radios in this way have been discussed for more than two years. Continuing with the same design while suggesting that each affected user probably has an individual network or power-supply problem is not a convincing response.
I’m sorry to hear that! I think this may have slipped through the cracks. Response and resolution times are metrics we actively track, so we regularly follow up to make sure issues have been resolved.
You can always reply to your existing support ticket and one of my colleagues will get back to you. Alternatively, feel free to send me the ticket number via DM and I’ll be happy to check on the status for you.
Since you mentioned Apple Home, are you using Homey’s Thread network or your Apple Thread network? If you aren’t already using the Apple Thread network, it might be worth trying to see if it provides a more stable experience in your setup.
At home, I use my Google Nest Thread network because it consists of five Thread Border Routers spread throughout the house. That gives me better coverage and reliability than relying on Homey alone. When setting up Homey whilst the preferred Thread Network is setup on your phone, Homey can join that existing Thread network as well.
Regarding the shared Zigbee/Thread chipset: if I remember correctly from earlier in this thread, you mentioned that you don’t use any Zigbee devices. If that’s the case, the radio shouldn’t be sharing airtime between Zigbee and Thread, so I wouldn’t expect that to be a contributing factor
As for Matter over WiFi, could it be that you still have WiFi enabled on your Homey Pro even though the ethernet dongle is connected? This can sometimes mess with routing of packets and cause issues with Matter over WiFi devices.
No. I used Apple’s Thread network for more than a year and initially shared the devices with Homey through Matter Multi-Admin. Some of those devices still became unavailable in Homey while remaining fully available and controllable in Apple Home.
Admittedly, that was some time ago and before several Homey updates. However, moving all devices from Apple Home to Homey took me about a week. Many of them are built-in devices that cannot simply be brought closer to Homey. I had to disconnect them, power them temporarily near Homey, commission them and then reinstall them. This even affected some Matter-over-Wi-Fi devices.
That is another weakness of Homey’s commissioning design. In Apple Home, I can put the device into pairing mode and add it in its installed location. With Homey, proximity to the hub often seems to be required during commissioning.
The big but is this: if I have to repair and recommission all these devices again, I will most likely move to Home Assistant instead.
Home Assistant is currently the most powerful smart-home platform on the market. It has evolved enormously, has become considerably more user-friendly and easier to manage, supports external antennas and even remotely positioned radio coordinators. With extensions such as C.A.F.E., it also has a rudimentary visual flow system resembling Advanced Flow, and that project is still actively developing.
With global players such as Apple, Google, Amazon and many others supporting Matter and Thread, while Home Assistant becomes easier to use, more powerful and compatible with almost every new and old device on the market, the available space for Homey will become increasingly narrow.
This will happen even faster if Athom continues selling an extremely expensive hub that does not perform its core radio functions reliably in all installations.
Don’t misunderstand me: Homey has some genuinely good features and may continue to occupy a useful niche. But it needs a credible plan B for cases where its internal radios do not perform sufficiently—for example, support for external antennas, external radio coordinators or at least consistently stable Matter and Thread operation.
That does not change the hardware design. Homey does not offer an option to completely disable the Zigbee or Thread radio, and the antenna arrangement itself remains questionable regardless of how many Zigbee devices I personally use.
I previously used Hubitat. When they released the C-8, it came with two separate screw-on external antennas. The system works very reliably, and users can even replace the supplied antennas with suitable longer third-party models if necessary.
Home Assistant also moved away from relying solely on the small SkyConnect USB dongle and now offers much more flexible radio-hardware options.
I’m sorry, but I am genuinely frustrated that a hub sold in 2026 still has no built-in Ethernet port and provides no support for external antennas or external radio coordinators. Even Homey Self-Hosted does not currently solve the antenna limitation.
If I eventually leave Homey, the main reason will be that the hub does not perform its fundamental job reliably in my installation. But Athom’s hardware and design decisions will also be a significant part of that decision.
No. Wi-Fi has never been enabled on my Homey Pro.
And frankly, this should not be a problem anyway. A properly designed device should either disable unnecessary Wi-Fi radio activity internally when Ethernet is connected or manage radio coexistence without requiring users to manually eliminate possible interference.
If merely having Wi-Fi enabled can significantly disrupt Thread or Matter reliability, that would not excuse the problem. It would further demonstrate a poor hardware or radio-coexistence design.
You don’t need to use Multi-Admin mode. With the Apple Thread network set up as your preferred Thread Network on your mobile phone, Homey can directly interact with that Thread network. You just need to use “Set up via iOS” when connecting the Matter over Thread device.
You can also choose to use your phone for commissioning! It will simply use your phones preferred Thread Network in that case, just like with most other platforms. This is exactly the same as how it will work on Home Assistant for example.
If you want to move them to another Thread network you will have to repair the devices and choose to connect them via iOS when asked. The device references will still exist within Homey and Flows and such will keep working.
That’s definitely not what I said there
If WiFi is enabled when Homey is also connected via Ethernet it could be that packets get mixed up and that can cause issues with Matter over WiFi devices.
I’m not talking about interference between radios and WiFi messing with Matter over Thread, let’s keep that very clear.
Definitely not, not for me at least. It’s missing almost all of my devices, many devices aren’t supported. Just to give you a few examples: iTAG, Zyxel Nebula, Tapo (Cloud), WiZ (Cloud), Kasa (Cloud), Asustor, HomeWizard Link, Canon printer (only partially), Duux (only partially). Sounds like I can go on forever!
Not to forget the Google Home, Alexa, IFTTT and remote access that Homey offers for free, but Home Assistant/Nabu Casa asks a ridiculous fee of €7,50 per month for that, which is just way too high for such a service. My Tuya smart bulbs support Google Home too, for free, the device cost only €3,95! You can get 7 VPS servers with a total of 7 vcpu’s, 7GB RAM and 70GB storage combined for €7,50 per month, it probably costs less than €1/month per user to offer the service.
No. You only have to pay that fee if you want the convenient, ready-made solution provided by Nabu Casa.
Remote access to Home Assistant can also be configured without a subscription by setting up Home Assistant and the router accordingly. I did that myself about three years ago, when Home Assistant was still considerably more complicated and aimed much more at technically experienced users.
I also do not see how your devices that depend on proprietary manufacturer clouds are relevant to my situation. I deliberately use Matter devices because I want my smart home to operate locally and independently of manufacturer-specific cloud services.
Provided the controller has a proper Matter implementation, a standards-compliant Matter device should not require a manufacturer-specific app, Homey app or custom driver for its basic functionality.
However, this thread is not supposed to become a Home Assistant versus Homey discussion. I mentioned Home Assistant mainly because of the serious reliability problems I am experiencing with Homey and because it provides a useful comparison showing that some hardware and architectural decisions can be handled better.
Homey still has the better interface and, in many areas, the better overall user experience. But that advantage is becoming smaller with every Home Assistant release.
And ultimately, the most important requirement of any smart-home system is not the prettiest interface. It is reliability.
I think the pure fact that Homey’s head of partnerships doesn’t use Homey’s own antennas for either his Zigbee network (he uses a Sonoff Dongle Max) or his Thread network, speaks volumes about the reliability of the hardware
At the same time, we are continously reminded (daily) that it is our internal home networks that is to blame for our Thread issues, and not Homey’s poor hardware implementation.
Perhaps I will now be told to stop spreading misinformation
And yes, once again I’ll ask you to please stop making assumptions and spreading misinformation. What you’re saying here is simply incorrect, and it isn’t helping anyone.
For my primary Zigbee network, I use the built-in Zigbee radio in my Homey Pro (2026), which currently has around 50 devices connected;
In addition, I have a separate Zigbee2MQTT setup running on a Sonoff Zigbee Dongle Max for testing purposes. It only has a handful of devices connected and isn’t part of my day-to-day smart home setup.
For Thread, I use my Google Nest Thread network, which consists of four Nest WiFi Pro units, a Nest Hub Max, an OpenThread Border Router running on a Sonoff Dongle Plus, and my Homey Pro (2026), which has joined that Thread network;
Homey’s Thread network is integrated with my existing Google Nest Thread network. During the initial setup, Homey checks whether you’ve already configured a Preferred Thread Network on your phone. If it finds one, it will attempt to join that network instead of creating its own. So it is just another TBR in the Thread network.
In my case, I already had a Google Nest Thread network, so when I set up my Homey Pro (2026), it automatically joined that network.
This can only be done during the initial setup. The reason is that Homey may need to switch its 2.4 GHz radio to match the Thread network’s channel. Since the Zigbee and Thread radios share the same chipset, changing the channel afterwards could disrupt your Zigbee network, and not all Zigbee devices handle channel changes gracefully.
I did own a Homey Pro (Early 2023) before this, but back when I set that up we didn’t yet launch Matter functionality. The Google Nest network did exist back then, have been using the Nest Wifi Pro’s since they launched. All the Thread devices I have currently connected have only been added since I installed my Homey Pro (2026).
When I commision my devices I always use the Connect via Android option as that’s usually a bit easier with the Bluetooth range if I’m for example on the other side of the home.
The Thread Leader is one of my Nest Wifi Pro’s at the moment, which are all connected via Ethernet.
Great to see how much activity this thread has picked up, and how much more insight has come out of it lately. My inbox has certainly noticed It has moved a long way from where it started in January, when I was just wondering why my lights had stopped answering.
Thanks everyone.
@Doekse, on the Nanoleaf question, I might have a useful data point.
I have three Nanoleaf NL54 GU10 bulbs. They were part of my original problem back in January, when they went offline together with most of my IKEA devices on the HP23. The same three bulbs are running today as Thread routers on Home Assistant, and they have been stable. Same bulbs, same home, same walls. What changed was the radio and the border router, not the devices.
So in my case at least, Nanoleaf wasn’t the cause.
The other thing that struck me in your setup description:
Thread on your Google Nest network (four Nest WiFi Pro, a Nest Hub Max, an OTBR on a Sonoff Dongle Plus), Zigbee on Homey’s built-in radio, and your Thread Leader being a Nest WiFi Pro rather than Homey. That is architecturally very close to where I ended up, just via a different route. Thread on dedicated hardware with plenty of border routers, Zigbee handled elsewhere, the two not competing.
I don’t read that as a criticism of Homey. I read it as the same conclusion arrived at independently: separating the two radios helps Which is exactly why opening SHS up to external radio hardware would be such a natural next step.
To be clear about where I’m standing: I’m on Home Assistant now, not Homey. I’m not proud of ending up there, and it wasn’t where I planned to land. But a smart home is like critical infrastructure. Happy wife, happy life… , and at some point reliability wins over preference. I’m still following this thread because I’d genuinely like to see whats coming.
And if @Doekse there ever will be any kind of closed community testing for 3rd part to SHS please let me know, I have the hardware and devices ready.
@Pascal_Nohl picking up where we left off a few weeks back. Your post about the antenna design is the sharpest analysis in this thread so far, and I think you are right.
The Hubitat C-8 comparison lands well. And Home Assistant moving away from the all-in-one SkyConnect towards separate adapters is a real signal, not just a product decision. They tried the combined approach and stepped back from it.
From the other side of that migration I can confirm it in practice. As I mentioned earlier, my SLZB-MR3 is exactly the design you are describing. I’ve also picked up an SMHUB from SMLIGHT, where the OTBR and Matter run directly on the device as services, so the whole Thread stack lives in one box rather than being split across radio and host. If Athom ever opens SHS up to external radio hardware, that is exactly the kind of device that could connect straight to it.
Your point that “it does not change the hardware design” is the one I keep coming back to as well. Whether you personally run Zigbee devices or not is beside the point. The chip is shared
either way, and there is no option to turn one side off. If you end up making the move after the summer, feel free to reach out. I’ve been through it and I’m happy to share what
worked and what didn’t
@smarthomesven just a small counterpoint from my own setup:
Matter/Thread is the stable and most responsive part of my network, and Zigbee is the one giving me trouble. The opposite of what you’re describing
Worth trying Matter native and nothing else on the radio if you can. That separation is what made the difference for me.
Which is exactly why opening SHS up to external radio hardware would be such a natural next step.
, and at some point reliability wins over preference. I’m still following this thread because I’d genuinely like to see whats coming.
