make that the cart in front of the horse.
Do you have any specific questions? You can only use it for Matter, and those docs are up to date. It’s not too different from previous models aside from the fact that you can commission Matter over Thread devices directly now (in the same way you could do Matter over Wi-Fi before). You don’t really need to know anything about the “physical” protocol.
.. using the web UI only, right? Or has the app been updated recently?
Either way should work. (EDIT: except maybe an odd issue with Apple devices?)
Both work - just brought my C8 Pro T online this morning...
Only real difference that you see is that there is a Thread Details entry under Settings instead of a Zigbee Detailes entry.
Perhaps I missed something which is possible. Looking forward to staff’s response.
I can only commission Matter over WIFI via an echo and cannot commission Matter over Thread, will that be the same for Matter over Thread on my C8 pro?
For the C8 Pro yes, the C8 Pro T however can directly commission a Thread Matter device.
I was only successful pairing the GRILLPLATS outlet using the Hubitat Mobile App.
Just running through some tests here. I can now confirm your findings, @HAL9000. When using the Hubitat Mobile App on my iPhone, to pair Matter over Thread (MoT) devices, it does indeed appear to use Apple Home's Thread network instead of the Hubitat C8 Pro Thread hub's Thread radio network. Easy way to determine this is by looking at the IPv6 address of the MoT devices on the HE hub's "Matter" settings page. Everything paired directly to the HE hub using the Hub's web user interface has the same 'fde1' prefix. Only the GRILLPLATS outlet is different.
Just before this image was taken, I also had a TIMMERFLOTTE Temp/Humid sensor showing the same prefix as the GRILLPLATS outlet. That TIMMERFLOTTE sensor was originally paired to the C8ProT hub using the web interface, then later via the Hubitat Mobile App, and then just now using the Hub's web interface. As you can see, its IPv6 prefix is now the same as the other directly paired MoT devices.
Thus, this leads me to the hypothesis that using the Hubitat Mobile App on an iPhone/iPad, assuming Apple Home is set up and already has a Thread network, that all MoT devices will use the Apple Thread network instead of the Hubitat Thread network. If this hypothesis is proven to be true, then for sure the Hubitat Engineering Team will need to figure out a solution.
I cannot commission Matter over Thread now via My Echo or otherwise, and I cannot commission Matter over WIFI directly on my C8 pro
Yes, doing it that way will ensure the C8 Pro T hub's Thread radio is used to commision/pair the MoT device, as you're using the hub's web interface, not the mobile phone app.
You can also bring up the Hub's web user interface in a web browser (i.e. do NOT use the Hubitat Mobile Phone App!) on your phone, and then perform Matter pairing from the same hub web UI. The nice thing about doing this is that it allows you to use your phone's camera to scan the Matter QR pairing code on the physical device, instead of having to type in the code.
I'm pretty sure this is standard procedure in both Apple and Google/Android. If Apple's Thread Network is already setup, an Apple Device will default thread devices that way. The same is true with Google Home and Android. One possible solution is an update to the mobile apps and setting up the new C8 Pro-T with them. The apps can access the stored thread credentials from Apple/Google. It should theoretically allow for the new Hubitat to join an existing thread network. This is how Google was able to get its thread boarder routers onto Apple's thread network. Google Home accesses the Thread network details in Keychain. Granted, the app is mostly a web-wrapper, so this direction might not be possible.
Other ways might be more challenging to merge Hubitat onto a pre-existing thread network. Smartthing's app provides QR codes to scan that Hubitat might figure out a way to tap into. Most likely, Hubitat will do something similar to Home Assistant where you can designate a preferred Thread network. This would allow for a user to use the web-UI.
Got the C8-Pro T setup this morning, and reset and paired all of the Thread devices with it.
First impressions:
- The thread/matter response is greatly improved, i.e. not seeing the lag that was there before, very similar to the ZWave/Zigbee response.
- Still see a small dead time at reboot until the matter network is fully functional, <5 minutes (not a deal breaker just need to set expectations appropriately).
- Need to play a little to see if the devices can be shared with other Matter controllers. Believe they can just haven't verified yet.
Yeah, the TBR must be up and fully online before the matter stack can be started, not much can be done about that dependency.
If we start them concurrently, they eventually sync, but it's a bit nasty in the logs...
I have had issues with a thread border router choosing a thread network that should not exist. It referenced the Eero router that I have, but thread is disabled on this router.
The pairing of Matter over thread devices is actually to the thread network used by the border router. I have a Homepod mini that I have been using as a border router. Own its own it changed the thread network it was using. That means I had to factory reset my devices and re-pair them. I only have 12 devices but that is still a time consuming process. This is why I want to know as much as possible about the Hubitat thread implementation. I wasted a lot of time using ChatGPT to research the thread network problem. I think it basically ended up guessing abut a solution that would have avoided the factory reset option.
I'm actually pleased that the Hubitat thread device will create a new thread network. Hopefully it will be better "behaved".
I am considering adding a C8 Pro T as well. Adding thread has already been an expensive endeavor so wondered if someone could comment on the viability of adding the C8 Pro T
I currently have 7 devices, 5 shades and a couple Eve smart plugs. I am using the TBRs from Alexa devices. I would say it works about 90% of the time. My HE automations usually run but using voice commands in Alexa works about 80% of the time. The Alexa devices will say the the device is currently offline, although most of the time I can open a dashboard and operate the device with no issue, but not always. I will have to open the device and send a refresh or re-boot my C8 Pro and the Alexa devices to get things going again.
I currently have 4 Alexa devices with TBRs. I originally only had one and that would not work at all. I had a second that was in my shop so I brought it up to the house and swapped it for one that did not have a TBR. That made things almost usable. I added a third and two Eve smart plugs which are mains powered devices that are supposed to be repeaters, and now a forth Alexa TBR. I saw improvement after adding the third and repeaters but not a lot after adding the forth TBR. All my shades are battery powered end devices. I assume the C8 Pro T will have better coverage with it's antennas. Can I expect it to have full coverage? Will the TBR in Alexa and the C8 Pro T work together? I guess some are looking at that now. My house is single floor ranch at about 1900 Sqft.
I am not sure if the issues I have with coverage is just poor implementation from the Alexa devices, which are still on Matter ver. 1.3 or just not enough mains powered repeater devices.
Any insight would be appreciated.
I am not sure the reason but I also gave MoT devices a try with my two Alexa’s and the experience was horrible. So much that I ditched the sensors and went back straight to zigbee. So bad I had actually said I will never try it again. This was a couple years ago or so.
Since then I have purchased three used HomePod Mini’s and combined them in a thread network with my Aqara M3 hub. This combined network has been rock solid for the four MoT devices that I have been trying out. Yes, I know is not a lot of devices but I can’t make myself pay to replace existing Zigbee devices that are working perfectly fine.
This new experience is making it extremely hard to not pull the trigger on the C8 Pro Thread Edition but so far I am able to withstand the self pressure. lol
If Hubitat can make this new hub have the ability to join an existing thread network such as the HomePods and M3 did then it would be impossible to stay away from for most people. That is one of rhetorical selling point for thread is if you have multiple TBR and the lead goes down then another takes that spot. That is a redundancy advantage over Zigbee and Zwave that uses one single coordinator. If the hub has this ability I apologize for misquoting.
I would guess it has about the same range as Zigbee on the C8 Pro does today. Thus, if you want really good coverage, you'll need to have a handful of MoT mains-powered devices to act as Thread repeaters. The EVE Energy MoT Plugs seem to do a nice job and paired quickly with the "C8 Pro Thread" hub.
Not currently. While the C8 Pro Thread hub does support Thread v1.4, the Hubitat Team has not yet added support to have it work with non-Hubitat Thread Border Routers (TBR). I believe that if the C8 Pro Thread hub discovers another C8 Pro Thread hub on the same network, they might become part of the same Thread mesh network. I only have the one C8 Pro T hub, so I cannot confirm that this works or not.
Yes, is my understanding as well, if you have multiple C8-Pro Thread hubs, by default they will all be on the same Thread mesh network. I think we have that right.