Home Assistant now has initial support for Matter (Matter over WiFi now, with Matter over Thread support to also come later)

[Hedda]

FYI, Home Assistant 2022.12 now has initial support for Matter if enables beta testing for Home Assistant Companion app (for Android).

Home Assistant is currently a Matter client, at least primarily for now, however, there is also an optional Matter server for experienced users and only if using Home Assistant Operating System or Home Assistant Supervised installations because of its add-on dependencies:

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2022/12/07/release-202212/

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/matter

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/io.homeassistant.companion.android

Home Assistant OS will later even add support Matter over Thread (OpenThread Border Router) but that will require eithe the "Home Assistant SkyConnect" USB adapter or "Home Assistant Yellow" embedded computer appliance with built-in IEEE 802.15.4 based RF radio (both their USB dongle and Yellow's built-in radio the will later get firmware update for OpenThread RPC Multi-PAN firmware for multi-protocol support). Alternatively, you will need another OpenThread Border Router USB adapter with firmware that has a standard spinel+hdlc+uart interface over serial or TCP so that you can setup and maintain a Thread network with Home Assistant can own and control:

https://www.crowdsupply.com/nabu-casa/home-assistant-yellow/updates/more-yellows-shipping-and-thread-plus-matter-updates

https://www.home-assistant.io/skyconnect/

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/home-assistant-skyconnect-usb-stick-announced-will-be-compatible-with-both-zigbee-and-thread-including-matter-chip-over-thread/433594/

zigpy/zigpy#894

https://github.com/home-assistant/addons/tree/master/silabs-multiprotocol

https://github.com/NabuCasa/universal-silabs-flasher

https://github.com/NabuCasa/silabs-firmware-builder

[Hedda]

FYI, Home Assistant / Nabu Casa also got a workshop on how to build your own Matter device (for Wi-Fi) with an Espressif ESP32-C3 devkit:

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2022/05/29/matter-in-home-assistant-workshop-announcement/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fOHBl5w0_k&ab_channel=HomeAssistant

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MldgA337wHTEx-vPkoxlCqKHrhVm5QIcHV32iLsv_2k/

https://nabucasa.github.io/matter-example-apps/

https://github.com/NabuCasa/matter-example-apps

While the Home Assistant's Matter Integration part is that workshop instruction documentation is a bit outdated (since Home Assistant 2022.12 is released ) the part about building your own Matter device (for Wi-Fi) using Espressif ESP32 C3 development kit board with their example applications and firmware should still be valid.

[Hedda]

Home Assistant OS will later even add support Matter over Thread but that will require Home Assistant SkyConnect adapter, Home Assistant Yellow (which both will later get firmware update for OpenThread RPC Multi-PAN firmware), or another OpenThread Border Router USB adapter with firmware that has standard spinel+hdlc+uart interface over serial or TCP:

Slightly off-topic but FYI, there is now an official experimental OTBR firmware available from Dresden-Elektronik for re-flashing ConBee II and RaspBee II (to repurpose Zigbee adapter as OpenThread Border Router), see → https://github.com/dresden-elektronik/openthread-r21

There are also unofficial experimental OTBR firmware Multi-PAN RPC firmware for multiprotocol support (Thread/OpenThread and Zigbee) for running OpenThead Border Router on other IEEE 802.15.4 based RF radio adapters such as Silicon Labs EFR32MG21 ZB-GW04 USB dongle from EasyIoT / eWeSmart Store and ITead Sonoff ZBDongle-E USB dongle:

https://github.com/skgsergio/silabs-multiprotocol-firmware-zbgw04-usb

xsp1989/zigbeeFirmware#32

To go further down the rabbit hole read and follow the developers + advanced beta-testers ongoing bleeding-edge discussions/tests here:

zigpy/zigpy#894

[Hedda]

FYI, Home Assistant posted a new blog post with a status update regarding its Matter support, and in summary, they have done big updates to their documentation on Matter, (and the next upcoming release version (Home Assistant core 2023.3 will also get experimental integration support for Thread Border Router in Home Assistant)

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/matter

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2023/02/08/state-of-matter-and-thread/

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2023/02/08/state-of-matter-and-thread/#matter

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2023/02/08/state-of-matter-and-thread/#thread

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/thread

[Hedda]

FYI, the Home Assistant 2023.3 release has made a lot of progress/improvements to their Matter client support (and Thread support). Most interestingly for third-party Matter solutions, Home Assistant's new releases now support connecting to Matter Bridges (Matter Bridge).

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2023/03/01/release-20233/#thread--matter

So, now you can for example connect your Philips Hue Bridge over Matter to Home Assistant's Matter (client) integration so that the Philips Hue Bridge abstracts all its own devices (instead of having to use the Philips Hue integration which relies on the proprietary Philips Hue API), as Matter Bridge which is meant for bridging Non-Matter Devices to a Matter Network. Silicon Labs has a good blog post about the concept:

https://www.silabs.com/blog/bridging-non-matter-devices-to-a-matter-network