I hope Matter becomes the "the facto" standard... now we have several more "standars"
This will in time result in IoT devices that actually mandate this connection (it was already stipulated in a recent version of the protocol). The end result will be that a new protocol was created, but rather than devices being able to run on their own, we end up with beds in heating mode, ie. the garbage we were trying to avoid in the first place.
So for me, zigbee it is!
These border routers also double as admins, and people want their smart home stuff to be available while they are outside their home network.
Thread devices can mandate internet connectivity the same way Wifi devices can.
Matter defines profiles and does certification that says your light bulbs cannot require an internet connection. The admin your water leak detector connects into can (and arguably should) alert you even when you are away from home, but the leak detector _itself_ cannot do that and be certified.
Like what. I have several hundred zigbee devices of almost all category you can think of, and I have never come across such a requirement. I don't understand how that would even work.
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.
The standardization is a plus though.
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.
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.
Meet zigbee2mqtt and ZHA. You only need a cheap USB adapter as a Zigbee coordinator and you are ready to go.