I had to make that technology decision recently and decided on Zigbee. I don't see any real advantage to Matter other than future support, and current support is much much lower than Zigbee.

The "seamless internet/cloud connection" is a massive turnoff. Products proudly advertising Matter and then hiding Thread vs WiFi is a pain. And frankly only IKEA really seems to be offering anything Matter with AU plugs and they're super coy about it so I'm never confident about what I'm getting.

Yes, it let you connect devices to your smart home interface, that don't support ZigBee or Zwave, without having to download a 3rd party app. The new protocol Threads also uses Matter for connection.

Not really but I do believe it’s the future. For any future devices, Matter/Thread is my preference.

But of course using HA means you don’t have to limit yourself. Both my Zigbee and zwave meshes are solid.

I did have a conversation with a friend a few months back who asked what I recommended. It’s tough because

• Matter/Thread is rolling out very slowly so you can’t really count on it yet.
• always avoid WiFi with vendor portals
• is it worth it for a newcomer to invest in Zigbee or zwave?

I have zigbee running on my home assistant zbt1 but i may get a zbt2 to rin thread and matter

Hell yeah.

Thread and Matter. I only started getting serious when HomeKit started supporting thread. And then when matter came around I started only getting things that support both.

It’s the future, but it’s not something I would encourage anyone with working systems to upgrade to. It’s perfect for new people to get in on. And perfect to slowly transition to. But matter still has a long way to go to support all possible device types and functions.

If you are asking Home assistant users, then your response will be more mixed. But for people using HomeKit and Google Home, it’s the future and promises more interoperability and more options for affordable accessories that don’t require using Homeassistant or vendor apps.

I hate vendor apps. And even with homeassistant making lots of progress in usability, it’s still a bit of a no-go for your average person. I say this as someone who owns official home assistant hardware for supporting needs. Most of my day to day interactions and automations still happen via HomeKit native tho.

I mainly use ZigBee, with a sprinkling of Wifi.

I think matter is going to continue to grow, both matter and matter over thread, especially with Ikea switching over.