2024 Smartplugs with Energy Monitoring?

[Andreas_Roedl]

How does Thread fit in? Is it better or worse than Zigbee when it comes to bandwidth?

[homeagain]

And amazon says ST certified… Looks like a crap shoot in any case.

[JDRoberts]

@Andreas_Roedl

How does Thread fit in? Is it better or worse than Zigbee when it comes to bandwidth?

It’s the same bandwidth, but thread has better network management than Zigbee, so you are less likely to get traffic jam problems.

Here’s a technical paper from SI labs on the testing they ran on multiple network management factors:

Bluetooth Mesh, Thread, and Zigbee Network Performance Benchmarking - Silicon...

[Andreas_Roedl]

Thanks! That was exactly what I was looking for.

[h0ckeysk8er (Bruce Pinsky)]

@JDRoberts

If you have several real-time energy reporting devices and they use a mix of protocols then, sure, it might be better than having them all on the same one, but you also run the risk of reducing the “quality of service” (QOS) on each. It’s like splitting the Thanksgiving parade in half and sending each part on a different route through the city. Most likely you’ve just snarled the traffic in two parts of town rather than one.

I can see getting some benefit from splitting between Z-Wave, Zigbee, and Wi-Fi. But I would think that as we move towards Matter devices, we might get contention between Zigbee and Matter over Thread devices since they share the same radio on the ST hubs. And the current energy monitoring Matter outlets from Eve are Matter over Thread

[JDRoberts]

@h0ckeysk8er

I can see getting some benefit from splitting between Z-Wave, Zigbee, and Wi-Fi. But I would think that as we move towards Matter devices, we might get contention between Zigbee and Matter over Thread devices since they share the same radio on the ST hubs. And the current energy monitoring Matter outlets from Eve are Matter over Thread

It’s possible, but for extremely technical reasons, some of which are detailed in the study I just linked to, thread just does a better job of managing its network and I think it’s unlikely that energy monitoring on the thread network would end up impacting the Zigbee network. I could be wrong, but SI labs doesn’t think so and they’re the ones building the chips.

EFR32MG12 Thread and Zigbee SoCs (Series 1) - Silicon Labs

[homeagain]

All, Thanks for the input. I decommissioned my first (failing) smart device and commissioned my first two Matter devices. While it was a bit pricey, the EVE smartplug was the easiest device addition I’ve done (one note below), and the devices even show up on the ST energy monitoring which none of my other monitoring devices do. The one odd thing is during the device addition (which does not require pressing buttons or hoping the nearby search works) I’m asked to add the device to my icloud, which seems odd. I check my icloud and looked for the devices, but i don’t see Devices. I did not try to set up Homekit (which I don’t use), but I’m assuming I could have.

[JDRoberts]

@homeagain

I’m asked to add the device to my icloud

That’s because that’s where Matter stores the security keys for devices which are added via an iOS device.

With that specific device, eve energy, you have a choice to set it up either via Apple HomeKit, or in the Apple Home app via Matter. The device will come with two different QR codes, one for each method.