Plenty of options for zigbee (and matter):
And, of course, Tuya products like MOES:
“Problem” with Zwave is that it is very popular in US but not so much elsewhere. Operating frequency varies by country, which means Z-Wave devices need to be compatible with the region where they will be used — which can limit international interoperability.
And you can also use Smart Modules with dumb switches:
Ex.: Smart Modules |Transforming Everyday Tasks for a Simpler Life | MOES
Thanks for the feedback. I understand I’m being picky, but with these being in wall powered items, my gut says to go with a product made by a traditional company (UL certified, familiar name, etc.) and I’m a little weary of those brands that other than Kasa I’ve frankly never heard of.
I’m maybe 6 months away from needing to buy these so I’ll watch for more options before then
Inovelli sells Matter over Thread smart switches now
None in a form factor that fits my 2 gang and 3 gang wall plates that provide 1/2/3/4/5 tap, hold, held etc as control options with 2/4/6 buttons in a single gang. I have seen all those already when investingating trying to switch protocols.
My zooz switches/remotes do all that.
Zwave first became popular because it solved a problem that Zigbee did not: fixed location devices. Like light switches and door locks. Which is why Z wave dominated the market in these specific device categories for a number of years.
The reason is simple. The frequency that Zigbee (and thread) operate on is the same one that Wi-Fi operates on. Which means very strong Wi-Fi almost always drowns out Zigbee.
Zwave operates on a different frequency altogether, so it just didn’t run into as much interference in a typical residential setting. So you could feel pretty safe putting it in any location in the home, which meant it worked very nicely for a fixed location devices like light switches.
With a Zigbee sensor you could use some trial and error, the whole “move it 6 inches to the left and see how it does“ approach. But you can’t do that with a light switch. 
This is an issue of the physical communication layer so Matter over thread doesn’t solve it.
At the time of this posting in 2025, the safest communication protocol for a light switch in terms of it being reliable and not running into interference from other things in the home is still Wi-Fi or Z wave.
So I can understand why most device manufacturers didn’t jump into offering thread and Zigbee light switches. Customer satisfaction is likely to be much lower because of local interference issues that the manufacturer can’t do anything about. 
Yeah. They went straight to WiFi… (Kasa is just one example)
Interference is pretty much a non-issue for Mesh networks like Thread, where there are multiple alternative paths to the controller(s).
There must be a reason why there aren’t that many players in the Z-Wave market anymore and why IKEA is switching from Zigbee to Thread and not to Z-Wave.
And no: no one has to move his Zigbee devices carefully 6 inches to the left to make the connection stable.
Edit: Z-Wave is also missing the most important feature of Thread: IP routing. Not to mention the hop limit of 4, compared to Thread with virtually no limit, but typically 32.
If I was starting now I would keep the ethernet for anything with an ethernet port, mesh wifi which are thread border routers and matter hubs, matter over wifi for anything powered and matter over thread for anything battery powered.
The problem with that approach is that if you only have battery powered thread devices there won’t be enough (or any) thread repeaters to propagate the thread mesh.
Same with every other mesh network protocol.
Agreed, not specific to thread, but it was the example quoted here so I was just highlighting it.
There is Z-Wave over Matter.
Install your Z-Wave devices on Home Assistant and use one of the Matter bridge add-ons to bring these back into SmartThings locally. One is called “Home-Assistant-Matter-Hub and another is called “Matter Bridge Assistant “.
Ok updated my post as I didn’t mention I have ST Hub V3, Echo show 8 3rd edition, Apple homepod mini, Aqara M100 Hub, all TBRs and matter controllers and also Nest Wifi Router and two points (not sure of it’s matter status but it is a TBR).
Respectfully, I was a field tech for years before I got sick for both Zigbee and zwave and we definitely did the “move 6 inches to the left“ frequently even for professional Zigbee installations. It did make a difference.
I have mentioned before my personal experience with a Wi-Fi extender on the north wall of a room, which caused all the Zigbee devices to the west of it to fall off the network. When we moved the same extender to the east, just 7 feet or so away, all the Zigbee devices came back online. That would not have happened with Z wave devices.
when I was in college, in one of my network engineering classes, we had an exam where you had to circle everything in the diagram of the kitchen that might interfere with signal transmission. The one that everyone missed, but that came from a real life case was a set of cast-iron pans. When they were placed on the bottom shelf, no problem, signal got through. When they were placed on the middle shelf, signal didn’t get through because of course the kitchen has a lot of big metal boxes, (refrigerator, oven, etc.), which also interfere and sometimes there are very few pathways.
So, in this particular case, I speak from professional experience.
we have also had multiple people in this community over the years who found that sensor placement for Zigbee sensors did make a huge difference in reliability.
That could be a solution but if you’re using a Home Assistant Hub , at that point wouldn’t you just switch to using them for everything?
If ST/Aeotec decide for some business or technical reason to exclude Z-Wave from their hub,
Why wouldn’t they encourage integration of that Z-Stick they sell, as a plug and play device… sure this would cost us more to add this on but if it just simply worked, we’d all be happy
As does Eve Energy.
There are actually more z wave devices in use in the US now then there were four years ago because both ADT security and ring use Zwave.
The people who buy these systems don’t usually know that they are z wave, but they are.
Again in the US, UL has approved Z wave for security applications, but not Zigbee. So most security systems use a combination of proprietary frequency and zwave, and particularly use zwave for fixed point home automation devices like light switches which then integrate with the system.
Ring’s “protected“ bundle consists of one Wi-Fi doorbell and 5 zwave devices.
As far as limits, I know this doesn’t help smartthings customers because the newest Z wave hub that works with smartthings is still on fifth generation. But the limits go away significantly with the current eighth generation and even more so with Z wave long range. It allows up to 4,000 devices (not 232) and a star network instead of mesh with range over 1 mile ( so the hop limitation goes away).
Internationally, the Z wave market is expected to continue to grow for the next 10 years.
there’s no question that among DIY power users, Zwave has lost a lot of buzz. But as a commercial product, it remains strong, particularly for single region providers.
My personal guess, although I don’t have any evidence for this, is that IKEA avoided zwave from the beginning for the same reason aqara did: they want to sell in both North America and Europe. Without any frequency confusion.
(That’s gotten a little easier since most zwave 800 devices can be switched from one region frequency to another, but it’s still one more layer of complexity compared to Wi-Fi.)
That’s nice and all, but…
… the new hub doesn’t have Z-Wave and will be used in professional installations like large office buildings, hotels or ships, where they can run fiber optic cables to route (Thread=IP) IoT traffic long distance without being affected by interferences. The mesh network will take care of the rest.
I think they know what they are doing and maybe they already tested it in all kinds of installations. Companies like Samsung, SmartThings or IKEA and LG aren’t stupid and I guarantee you that there are a lot of network engineers working on it.
We can hope. 
Ok. I only have hub 3 as the tbr, nothing else. I have echo dots none of which are tbrs. My thread network is basically about 15 matter/thread bulbs and a couple of matter/thread sockets (over and above the st hub v3)
