Matter may have got off to a bumpy start, but the smart home standard looks set to play a bigger role in the smart home world in 2025 and beyond.
However, while smart home platforms such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple HomeKit have fuelled the expansion of the smart home in the past few years, with a little help from the likes of SmartThings along the way, the idea of the smart home is, in fact, nothing new.
Z-Wave, first introduced back in 1999, has been connecting smart home devices before people even started using the phrase “smart home”. Think devices like wireless garage door openers, light switches, motion sensors and a whole lot more. Have a read of our Z-Wave guide to dig deeper.
The likes of Homey, Home Assistant, Hubitat and SmartThings all work with Z-Wave and there’s a chance, therefore, that a lot of people have built up collections of Z-Wave devices that they cannot now integrate into their Matter smart homes… or can they?
Matter and Z-Wave issues

While Z-Wave isn’t natively part of the Matter standard, there are still ways to seamlessly integrate your Z-Wave devices into your Matter smart home.
This explainer will guide you through the process, allowing you to create a truly interconnected home.
But before we do that, it’s key to get your head around exactly what’s going on in the background.
The challenges lie in the fundamental differences between Matter and Z-Wave.
Matter is an only an application layer – think of it as a set of communication rules (protocols). It defines how smart home devices communicate and understand each other’s commands. It’s built on IP, and uses familiar network technologies like Wi-Fi, Thread, and Ethernet.
Z-Wave, on the other hand, is a complete protocol covering the physical layer to the application layer, employing its own, non-IP, mesh networking protocol.
It’s the same(ish) story for Zigbee; a long time alternative/rival to Z-Wave. However, Zigbee is part of the Connectivity Standards Alliance (which was actually called the Zigbee Alliance until a couple of years ago) and is much more Matter friendly.
Zigbee, like Z-Wave, isn’t IP-based, but there are a bunch of Matter bridges / gateways available – from the likes of Philips Hue, Aqara, SwitchBot and Ikea – that allow Zigbee devices to operate, bridged, within a Matter system.
For example, add an Aqara smart home hub to a Matter controller and you’ll be able to use any of your connected Zigbee Aqara ‘child’ devices – think sensors, lights, locks and more – within a Matter system.
No such bridge or gateway exists, yet, to do the same thing with Z-Wave devices, although we do hold out hope – more on that further down.
Using a smart home hub

So, what do you need to do now to bridge the gap before an actual bridge comes along to, er, bridge the gap?
Well, firstly, you’ll need a Matter-compatible smart home hub or Controller. This could be a smart speaker, a dedicated smart home hub, or even a smart fridge. No, I’m not joking – check out our guide to the best Matter Controllers here.
A Matter Controller, as the name suggests, is the central command center for your Matter network. Chances are you’ve already got one.
And the chances are, if you’ve got a bunch of Z-Wave devices powering your smart home, that you’ve got one that is also a Z-Wave hub.
The likes of the Samsung and Aeotec SmartThings Hubs, Homey Pro and the Hubitat Elevation are all examples of smart home hubs that are both Matter controllers and Z-Wave hubs. Heck, they all throw Zigbee into the mix too, along with a whole other array of standards/protocols.
These hubs don’t really care how you have paired your smart home device, and they don’t really care how they communicate to them. As long as they can, they will.
That means, for example, you can add a Matter device to a SmartThings hub and then create routines and automations that also include Z-Wave devices. So you could have a Z-Wave motion sensor from the likes of Fibaro turn on a Matter smart light such as the Govee LED Strip Light M1, and turn up the temperature on a Matter-enabled thermostat.
This wouldn’t be a direct, local Matter-to-Z-Wave communication. This type of automation means the SmartThings hub is still processing stuff in the cloud, but it does mean that your Matter and Z-Wave devices would work together in your smart home.
And for now, that’s as good as it gets. But, as mentioned, there is hope…
A dedicated Matter and Z-Wave bridge

While the solution above is currently the most effective way to integrate Z-Wave into Matter, the smart home landscape is dynamic and the people behind Z-Wave want to get involved in Matter.
“We are in talks with CSA,” Avi Rosenthal, Chairman of the Z-Wave Alliance board recently told The Ambient over at CES 2025.
“Today, we have lots of Z-Wave members that build gateways, controllers and hubs, with multiple radios in them and multiple bridges,” he explained.
“There is no technical reason why a Z-Wave device cannot be controlled or control a Matter device, a Thread device, a Wi-Fi device or a Bluetooth device. It is merely an evolution of software development to allow for that to happen.”
That evolution of software is already happening… albeit slowly.
Silicon Labs, who have ‘owned’ Z-Wave since 2018, launched the Unify Software Development Kit (SDK) a couple of years ago, which “provides a Matter bridge example code to enable Z-Wave customers to be connected to the Matter ecosystem.”
They also have the Unify Matter Bridge, built upon the Unify SDK, and have shown off hubs at the last couple of CES expos showing off how this tech could work.
So while it’s been a couple of years since we’ve seen any real update on the Matter / Z-Wave bridge front, it is possible.
And if something is possible in tech, and there’s a big enough demand for it, it usually happens.
But for now, to get your Matter and Z-Wave devices singing and dancing together the likes of Homey and SmartThings are your best bet.
Hubitat and Home Assistant may also be worth checking out too, especially if you’re not scared of a bit of tinkering, and know your YAML from your Node-RED.