The Ikea Grillplats smart switch is a $7.99 smart switch with:
- Max output power:
1800 watt / 15 A resistive load, or 300 watt motor load - Matter over Thread
- Power monitoring
It is probably the cheapest smart switch from a major brand to include power monitoring and use a dedicated IoT network like Thread. It can be used with Home Assistant and never require an app or wifi to use.
Hardware: Nabu Casa Skyconnect, bluetooth adapter*
Apps: Matter Server, OpenThread Border Router, Bluetooth integration*
The default method to pair Thread devices is using the Matter integration in the Companion App. This relies on the native iOS/Android Matter functions. Documentation from HA is sparse, but suggests that the use of VLANS is problematic. Let's look for an alternative solution.
A comment from patvdleer on Github has a clue, and recent HA updates make this easier. It only requires an existing bluetooth integration in Home Assistant. The comment provided the full solution in my case. Since Matter Server 8.5.0, you can use HA's existing bluetooth stack.
- Enable BLE Proxy. In HA, Settings -> Apps -> Matter Server -> Configuration. Toggle "Enable BLE proxy" and let the App restart.
- In the App's Info tab, click "Open Web UI" and click "Commission new Thread device." It will ask for a dataset.
- In a different browser tab, go to HA Settings -> Thread. Click the Thread network information button and copy the full string after "Active dataset TLVs." Mine starts with 0e08.
- Back to the Matter Web UI, paste this value and enter the pairing code. You can now pair Matter over Thread devices directly via Bluetooth.
Paired devices can be found in HA at Settings -> Matter -> Devices. This probably works for all supported Thread devices.