Offloading Thread to Apple Border Routers for Zigbee stability?

Questions & Help
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1

Hey guys,

I’m looking for some advice on my setup. I’m currently running a Homey Pro (2023) with quite a large Zigbee network. I want to start adding more Matter-over-Thread devices, but I’m a bit hesitant about the “all-in-one” radio chip in the Homey.

Since the Silicon Labs chip handles both Zigbee and Thread, I’m worried that things might get a bit crowded or laggy once the Thread network grows.

I’ve already got a solid Apple backbone (one Apple TV on Ethernet, two on Wi-Fi, and two HomePod minis). My idea is to pair all new Thread devices to Apple Home first and then “share” them with Homey using Matter Multi-Admin.

A few things I’m wondering about:

  1. Does this actually “free up” the Homey radio? If Apple handles the Thread mesh, does the Homey chip stay 100% dedicated to Zigbee?

  2. In this Multi-Admin scenario, does Homey communicate with the devices over my LAN (Ethernet/Wi-Fi) through the Apple Border Routers, or does it still try to use its own Thread antenna?

  3. Has anyone noticed a real-world difference in Zigbee stability by keeping Thread strictly on separate Border Routers?

I’d rather keep the Homey as “clean” as possible for Zigbee if this works the way I think it does. Curious to hear your thoughts!

2

I’m not going to claim expert knowledge but my recent research leads me to believe that all multi-admin gives you is the ability to operate one device from multiple Thread networks. The ability to mesh multiple networks together is supported by Matter 1.4 (maybe 1.3). A bit of Googling says your Apple devices run 1.4.1 but Homey is stuck in 1.2.

There is some evidence to support this because to mesh networks together, Homey must either be able to receive a pairing code or issue one. I think that feature is currently restricted to devices, not the network.

So, I think multi-admin won’t reduce the load on your Zigbee radio. Might be best to wait until Homey gets a later version of Matter and/or share your Apple Thread devices to Homey via an integration.

Happy to be proven wrong.

Andy

3

AFAIK Homey will not have access to the Apple Thread network, so it will only communicate on ethernet/wifi via the Apple Thread Border Router. Thread is using channel 25 in Apple, so set up your Zigbee wise to not interfere with channel 25, and also ensure zigbee and wifi not overlap.

My setup is Unfi Wifi with 3 AP at ch 1 + ch 6 + ch 11, zigbee@ch20 and Thread@ch25.

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