Why Matter matters, and how does WiFi and Thread fit into it.
<Updated 8th May 2024> This is, mostly, a technical post.... and it differs from most of my posts because the new Matter standard had only just been released when I initially wrote it and there's not much out there as devices go.... so I have little practical experience. So, why am I writing this? Well, because there seems to be a great deal of confusion about what Thread is, what Matter is, and how HomeKit integrates with them. I must admit, to pull this together, I have had to draw from many sources. A few words of warning. Follow the old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's not necessarily an "upgrade" to Matter. If you have a device that works perfectly well in HomeKit and you do not need the multi-controller capability, keep it in HomeKit. An example would be lights that support adaptive lighting. It's not supported in Matter yet, so if you use that capability and you change to Matter support you will lose that capability i
