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Comment by hobofan | Hacker News Reader

> the facto *de facto

Any reason you prefer Matter rather than Zigbee? Zigbee has been a thing far longer than Matter, so I don't think the "one more standard" criticism is valid here.

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It is supposedly an open source standard that do not requires internet connection to work, and can use regular wifi (2,4ghz) networks as a means to connect devices so you do not need to buy a hub for them. You can create your own hub with a mini pc for instance with a regular wifi card. No need for specific hardware

All of this can be done with ZigBee. It is open and local mesh over 2.4ghz.

You need to buy the zigbee adapter. With matter you can use just regular wifi cards

For matter over thread you do need a hub and you need more certifications for matter, so for manufacturers it is less open.

The standardization is a plus though.

I mean you can already do exactly that with zigbee after buying a zigbee usb connector which are extremely cheap.

I know because that’s what I have been doing for the past five years.

But to be fair my setup is now mostly IKEA so I guess I could go back to a bridge and stop having to maintain my stuff at some point.

So you need to buy and adapter. With Matter you don't, you can use your regular wifi cards. No new "adapter" needed.

What makes you think you will be able to use Thread with a regular wifi card? That's not my impression.

Matter is just the protocol and Matter over Thread is pretty sure to be prefered by everyone over Matter over Wifi because of the power draw.

No need for specific hardware

Meet zigbee2mqtt and ZHA. You only need a cheap USB adapter as a Zigbee coordinator and you are ready to go.

So you need to buy and adapter. With Matter you don't, you can use your regular wifi cards. No new "adapter" needed.

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