THIRDREALITYSmart Bridge MZ1 -Zigbee to Matter Connectivity, Compatible with Google Home, Apple Home, SmartThings, Home Assistant etc.

Finally, I found a solution that works locally with both HA and Google Home.I'm a heavy Google Home user but recently started experimenting with HA. I love how HA supports Zigbee devices, but I didn't want to give up my Google setup. After some research, I decided to try using a bridge and set it up to support both HA and Google through the Matter Multi-Admin feature. Surprisingly, this setup worked extremely well. My Zigbee devices (mainly switches and sensors) are recognized by both HA and Google through Matter (which is local) and can be controlled via voice commands and routine setups. If you're looking for a local solution that works across multiple platforms, the bridge is the way to go.

I bought this to replace an older one that I assumed had stopped working. After 3 days of trying, I gave up trying to connect this bridge. I could connect to it via the 3R Installer app, but that app doesn’t do anything else. Every time I tried to connect it to Alexa, I had to delete it from the 3R Installer and it would connect to Alexa but rarely stayed connected more than a few hours. I gave up and returned it.

I had to buy this to get the soil moisture monitor to work but it did do the trick. It is small, easy to setup and got my device connected to home assist / apple home

I bought this to link my Zigbee smart devices into the new Matter world right into my Home Assistant (Docker on Raspberry Pi 4). It seemed to work when using the 3R-Matter ios app. But that's where it ends. Once you added the Matter bridge on Home Assistant, you'll see all the Zigbee devices that you have associated on the MZ1. Well, kinda. It's glitchy and unreliable. I have ThirdReality zigbee smart plugs with power monitor. No power monitor shows up on the 3R-Matter app or Home Assistant. The status is constantly at ON, even when you turn it OFF. It insists it's ON. lol. As for the ThirdReality Zigbee Motion Sensors, they show up on my Home Assistant now, but they are useless. The sensors never report any detection. When you compare it to the 3R-Matter app, the sensors are reporting just fine. This is useless, let alone the draft-unfinished iOS app they have for 3R-Matter. There's probably debug lines on these apps everywhere because it is obvious they paid a fiverrr developer $5 to build the app. This is not a serious company.

The name was a bit strange to me, and it took some time to figure out what it was for. I used the bridge with my Apple HomePod and a few devices from Third Reality, and initially, it seemed like there was no need for this app at all. However, for one of my home automation setups, I needed to adjust the motion sensor cooldown time to turn off the lights faster. After some research, I discovered that Third Reality offers cooldown time adjustment in their latest firmware, which can be configured through the 3R-Installer app.The app is primarily designed to help you set up your device and configure initial settings, not for day-to-day use (since that’s the job of your main app like Apple Home). That’s why it’s named the 3R-Installer app. I wish someone had told me this earlier, so I wouldn't have had to do so much research to learn it the hard way. But in the end, I'm glad the app was useful and solved my problem.

I wanted this to enable me to have my Third Reality blinds in my Apple Home app besides in Alexa. Setup was confusing even to someone who has been doing smart home devices for years. I was able to get the Bridge setup eventually to work in Alexa, Apple Home, and Google. By day one it was offline and I was able to pull the power and restart and get it to working. I contacted 3Reality support by email and they gave me suggestions for rebooting my router and updating router firmware. The bridge firmware is up to date as is the firmware for the blinds. All of this made no change to reliability. I need to depend on the blinds working especially when I am not at home.At this point, I've wasted to much time and frustration with this device and will return it within my 30 day return window. I have uninstalled the bridge and connected by Third Reality blinds back directly to Alexa via Zigbee and will just live without them in Apple.

I had high hopes for this device, unfortunately, it needs a lot of work. Where do I begin? At first, it appeared it would be what I hoped for: I added it to Home Assistant via Matter, and then added my 3 Third Reality Blinds. The worked! Then things you would consider fairly normal with tech began:1) This device connects to your wifi to bridge over to Matter. My wifi router needed a firmware update, so as usual I applied it. Then this device would not reconnect to it. Any wifi device I've ever had tries to connect again after a power failure or reboot of the router. Not here! I had to pull the power on it and reset it before it connected again.2) When I pulled the power to reset it, it promptly forgot the custom names I assigned to my blinds. I had to figure out which was which by trying them.3) There is no way to view what Zigbee channel this thing uses, or change it. Zigbee has over lapping frequencies with wifi, so you generally don't want them interfering with each other let alone other Zigbee networks.4) There is no way to change the wifi network you're joined to. What if I get a new one or change the name/security? Reset the bridge and pair your devices over again?I see this thing has had a lot of rapid fire software updates. It was clearly not ready or tested outside of a development lab to see what the "real world" would do to it. I have about 30 days before my return window closes, if at least half my issues are not addressed by then... back it goes because, as is, it is defective.

Initially, there were a few glitches, but after the firmware is upgraded, it became incredibly stable. I've been running it continuously ever since and there haven't been any issues at all.By the way, if you are using Matter with HA, you don't need the 3R-Installer app. The bridge can be updated over-the-air(OTA) within HA. Nice!