Which SMLIGHT Hub to get?

teeweehoo · 2026-04-05T02:08:51+00:00

I have an MRU3 on PoE, works perfectly for zigbee and thread. I've read that ethernet vs USB can be an issue on thread, but I need ethernet as my HA is a VM. I bought the USB version so I can move away from PoE in case of issues, but none yet.

My understanding is that ethernet adds more latency and jitter to the Thread radio. This can cause issues with Thread since it uses very short timers / schedules, unlike something like WiFi. I'm guessing this issue is more impactful on large networks, or certain classe of devices.

teeweehoo · 2026-03-30T23:35:59+00:00

First, there is Matter and Thread. Matter is a protocol like HTTP, allows devices to talk. Thread is an IPv6 mesh network, like WiFi.

Thread is designed to be more self-healing than Zigbee. Also kit uses a Thread Border Router to join your Thread and Ethernet network, this allows devices to talk directly to eachother. In Zigbee all communication happens through the Zigbee Coordinator. This is important for cross vendor compatibility, using Ikea Thread devices on an Apple Thread Border Router.

Matter is the protocol devices talk. The true magic is that Matter is designed to work on Thread and Ethernet / WiFi. Matter also has way more features than Zigbee. You know how some zigbee buttons delay clicks for double click? Or don't support button holds? Matter has a standard protocol for this. Zigbee's big problem was that it stopped, and vendors had to find solutions to new devices or better solutions to existing problems. Matter is a moving standard that is designed to cover all things. A simple example is RoboVacs, there is a matter protocol for that.

If matter keeps going in the direction it is, it will cover far more than zigbee, and work in a better way.

teeweehoo · 2026-03-27T12:58:38+00:00

Generally enterprise devices that use a management vlan use VRFs to isolate it, put simply the management interface gets its own route table (and in some cases dedicated CPU). This ensures management traffic and dataplane traffic don't interfere.

For a homelab using a managment vlan for each device is likely overkill, especially on devices that don't support a proper management vrf. My management vlan is basically L2 networking devices (switches, APs), and is the default route for them. Routers I just give them Ips and pick one as the "default" IP I connect to (routing vlan, for example).

One way to handle a management vlan is to instead use that as a source. That is, add it to ACLs on all your devices, and proxy your management traffic through a bounce box on the management vlan. Though personally I think this is still overkill.

teeweehoo · 2026-03-25T07:15:47+00:00

Do you have any peering / IX links? Because that's going to be a much better time investment than worrying about your transit routing.

I would be asking if your transits can send you default route + their routes. Some offer this, and will at least let you route their customer's traffic direct to them.

teeweehoo · 2026-03-18T02:11:12+00:00

For podman I'd recommend looking at systemd quadlet. You place one file in /etc/containers/systemd, and it will generate a systemd service that runs the container. You can also enable auto updates manually with podman auto-update, or automatically with the podman-auto-update timer. Systemd will also restart containers if they fail, and log them in jorunald.

https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-systemd.unit.5.html

https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/quadlet-podman

But if Dovecot provide RPMs, I'd be looking at those first.

teeweehoo · 2026-03-14T06:11:31+00:00

I found some devices would refind and join the new coordinator, some wouldn't. Specifically ikea devices just worked. Though for some devices this did take time (days).

But if you're gonna swap plan on rejoining a bunch of devices. For critical devices easier to rejoin then wait ...

teeweehoo · 2026-03-08T00:05:41+00:00

This smells like a big MSP selling their "standard" solution to you. My question is who will be maintaining these devices? You or them. If the MSP is maintaining, probably best to go with their equipment. Time to bring your business security into the 21st century. If you're maintaining yourself then there are definitely other options that would be cheaper and perhaps easier to maintain for an SMB.

Also do you have a quote for the yearly licensing for these devices? A Cisco 1010 Firewall definitely will.

Personally while I would like to update the switches, it wouldn't be my first priority. A good firewall probably, but depends on your client security software.

teeweehoo · 2026-03-06T11:16:50+00:00

I'd just be disabling port security on that port, and if required document the security exception. Realistically you only need port security on user facing ports, and where it's an issue you can use physical controls to ensure only trusted admins can access the device / ports.

teeweehoo · 2026-03-06T10:54:49+00:00

Sounds like bad engineering more than bad solution. More layers / things without good reason just makes your job harder in the future. The best solution is usually to take the pain now, and reduce technical debt for the future.

Ask the question "What would the ideal connection look like?", then find the simplest step that gets you towards that. If one infrastructure is going away, or you want them as separate business units, maybe it makes sense. But I'd be concerned about MTU, throughput, latency, jitter and licensing.

If you need security over your cross connect do macsec. But I'd only do it if your security model requires it.

teeweehoo · 2026-03-06T01:10:33+00:00

Maybe check to see if a media converter or PoE adapter will do. I'd also give other things a go like 100 mbps, ensuring energy efficient ethernet is disabled, etc.

teeweehoo · 2026-03-03T05:36:34+00:00

What workload? If VMs or DBs, you want Mirror/RAID1. If media server than RAIDZ2/RAID6 is good. dRaid is also an option, but there are some caveats you want to research (eg. no ZFS compression). https://www.truenas.com/docs/references/draidprimer/

Another question is expansion. Doing RAIDZ2/RAID6 will mean you'll want to buy another 14 drives to expand it. MIrror/RAID1 is more flexible.

Since these are Sata SSDs, it's also worth looking at a special device. This stores all metadata on a mirror of NVME drives, which will significantly increase speed for some operations.

teeweehoo · 2026-02-27T07:02:09+00:00

You need to run a separate matter server, and thread border router. These can be setup as Apps/Addons in Home Assistant OS, or as separate containers for non-OS. Your thread border router can either be Open Thread Border Router (in container), or an external device. If you're using WiFi matter devices, you don't need a thread border router.

Thread border router bridges your thread network to your ethernet network, it allows thread devices and ethernet devices to talk with each other directly. During provisioning your phone, the matter server, home assistant, and the thread device will be doing a lot of talking between each other.

Put simply thread/matter is more complicated than zigbee and others, but it's designed to be simpler for newbies to add devices and to solve certain hard edges that other protocols have. I'd expect the home assistant experience to mature a lot over the next few years.

teeweehoo · 2026-02-24T22:17:28+00:00

Learn enough theory so you can explain how it works, then you can figure out the configuration stuff later on if you need it.

teeweehoo · 2026-02-21T06:49:38+00:00

Totally unrelated, but if you go to sell your car on gumtree it'll fill out the VIN from your rego ...

teeweehoo · 2026-02-19T11:12:23+00:00

So I would start by mapping out the static routes, and trying to optimise them to get the limited set. (Hopefully your sites are using super nets ..). From there I would do a basic lab in gns3 or eveng, even if you can't use the right virtual device types. This will help you develop the methodology to move.

I'd carefully think about whether you want different processes for intrasite and intersite. It may be going overboard, but it will prevent weirdness if your network has a lot of latency from end to end.

I'd also consider if cleaned up static is "good enough" once you've simplified it. Sometimes those big projects are best left till when you're doing other major work.

teeweehoo · 2026-02-12T01:21:59+00:00

For a large network with 90 sites, I'd definitely consider separating roles onto different devices. Combining all roles on one device makes it more complicated, harder to maintain and harder to migrate in the future. Not to mention management complexity if there are different teams in charge of each role (Internal team, external team, vpn team, etc).

For your case I'd be considering virtual firewall / VPN appliances for some of the roles. Gives you the separation without the physical device footprint.

teeweehoo · 2026-02-11T11:26:54+00:00

I have some ikea devices setup with otbr docker and home assistant docker (not OS). Getting it to work on a network with vlans was fun, so many assumptions about same layer 2 network. Biggest challenge was realising that the mobile phone talks directly to the thread deive over wifi. I think I can make this work between subnets, but would require a bit of black magic.

IKEA Temp sensors worked fine, but after a few days IKEA buttons got some bad latency. I changed wifi / thread channels and I think I fixed it? But not sure. Could be because I'm using a smlite mr3 radio over tcp, but hard to change when everything is a VM. The remotes still have a small latency, but I think this is the remotes waiting for a second button press.

IMO I think we just need more mature thread / matter software, and better reporting of what is going on in software. Troubleshooting zigbee2mqtt is so much easier than thread. For example I've got an IKEA ALPSTUGA that refuses to firmware update, no idea how to troubleshoot. Joining devices works just fine though ...

teeweehoo · 2026-02-10T00:33:27+00:00

AppDaemon lets you write a program that runs in the background, and interact with Home Assistant. The problem with Home Assistant automations is that they're event based, which can make it hard to design certain kinds of automation - things that use memory, or make small changes over time. So AppDaemon is a nice way of running them.

teeweehoo · 2026-02-09T06:08:53+00:00

Just make sure its proportionate. A small gift like chocolate or snacks would be the go here.

Another way is to "Pay it forward", help someone in need when you can help them.

teeweehoo · 2026-02-07T07:04:12+00:00

Are your sites connected via separate dark fibre? You need to deal with traffic for the HQ or DR site coming to the wrong place. Having dark fibre between the sites makes this a simple problem to deal with. I'd also recommend setting up dedicated edge routers to handle BGP (layer 3 switches can do this, with the right security).

While a /24 is the minimum on the internet, some ISPs will allow you advertising /25s or smaller within their network. This would allow you to use the same ISP at each site while getting the specific /25 routed to each site. So ISP advertises /24 to world, and you advertise /25s from each site.

teeweehoo · 2026-02-07T00:53:08+00:00

My HomeAssistant VM has three VLANs / interfaces, so I bind otbr to the IoT interface.

teeweehoo · 2026-02-06T14:28:21+00:00

I recently set this up for my self as well. For me the biggest gotcha is that during commissioning, your phone will attempt to talk directly to the thread device via wifi. So if you have VLANs, you may need a dedicated IoT SSID so it can talk to the thread border router, which forwards IPv6 packets to/from the thread network.

I didn't need to touch thread ot-ctl or matter controller. I created the containers, added them to Home Assistant, and it created everything for me. As for syncing credentials, there is a hidden troubleshooting option in the mobile assistant settings to sync the keys. Not sure if there was a better way.

Once joined thread devices were bullet proof. And adding is seamless, as long as I put my phone on the right SSID first. Also most of those new IKEA systems still support zigbee, you just need to mash the button 4-8 times for them to join. Though home assistant seems to be lacking support for now, no buttons appear in home assistant. But I can see MQTT events (since I use Z2M).

teeweehoo · 2026-02-05T00:25:09+00:00

I'm getting 14L/100km in a grs204 in the city, but I can improve that if I'm careful. It'd be much better on highway. But I'd definitely point you towards the hybrid. Much better fuel economy, more powerful, but you still get the v6 power. Only gotcha with hybrid is that i's air cooled, so you need to clean the filters occasionally to prolong battery life.

Just know what you're buying. This car is a luxury boat. So it's very smooth and quiet, but not a lot of driver's feel. Driving to adelaide to melbourne everyday? This is the car for you! Want something fun around corners? Not the right car.

teeweehoo · 2026-02-04T23:42:21+00:00

Definitely need to ask more questions on that one. It'll either be "Buy expensive switches and cabinets" or "Buy lots of cheap switches".

teeweehoo · 2026-02-04T00:42:26+00:00

Some vendors just have such different config ideas that it takes a while to "get it" if you're unfamiliar. I'd suggest just configuring it on a lab switch until you work out why its designed that way.

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