Zigbee vs. Matter over Thread:Understanding IoT Protocol Performance in Practice

核心亮点：这篇论文首次用真实设备对比了智能家居两大无线协议——老牌Zigbee和新兴的Matter over Thread，结果发现它们各有短板：一个反应快但规模受限，一个能扛大事但稍显迟缓。通俗解读：你可以把Zigbee和Matter想象成两个“传话员”。Zigbee是小区里的老保安，熟悉每家每户，小范围内传话又快又准，但小区一扩建成几百户的大社区，他就有点忙不过来。Matter则是新来的智能管家，刚上岗时行动稍慢，但管理大规模社区时井井有条，信息传递稳定不迷路。简单说，Zigbee赢在“小而快”，Matter胜在“大而稳”。实际影响：对普通家庭来说，如果你只有十几个智能灯泡、插座，选Zigbee设备性价比更高、响应更跟手。但如果你打算全屋智能化，装几十上百个传感器和开关，Matter会保证设备再多也不掉链子。更重要的是，Matter支持跨品牌互联，不用担心买A家的灯配不上B家的网关。未来智能家居会越来越复杂，这项研究帮厂商和消费者看清了方向：小户型看Zigbee，大别墅选Matter。

Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Search arXiv Press Enter to search · Advanced search Computer Science > Networking and Internet Architecture arXiv:2603.04221 (cs) [Submitted on 4 Mar 2026] Title:Zigbee vs. Matter over Thread: Understanding IoT Protocol Performance in Practice Authors:Massimo Nobile, Fabio Palmese, Antonio Boiano, Alessandro E. C. Redondi, Matteo Cesana View a PDF of the paper titled Zigbee vs. Matter over Thread: Understanding IoT Protocol Performance in Practice, by Massimo Nobile and 4 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:The widespread adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) has positioned smart homes as paradigmatic examples of distributed automation systems, where reliability, efficiency, and interoperability depend critically on the underlying communication protocol. Among the low-power wireless technologies available for this scenario, Zigbee and Matter over Thread have emerged as leading contenders. While Zigbee represents a mature, non-IP mesh networking solution, Matter over Thread introduces an IP-based architecture designed to unify device interoperability across different ecosystems. However, despite extensive documentation of their design principles, there is a lack of empirical, comparative performance data under realistic network conditions. This paper presents a comprehensive experimental comparison between the two protocols, conducted on a testbed built from commercially available hardware. The proposed methodology focuses on different key performance dimensions, such as scalability, responsiveness, and fault tolerance. The results reveal that Zigbee achieves a lower baseline overhead and faster route recovery, making it more responsive in static small-scale deployments. Matter over Thread, conversely, exhibits superior scalability and robustness, maintaining stable throughput and predictable latency across multi-hop scenarios. Overall, we highlight that Zigbee and Matter over Thread embody distinct trade-offs between agility, efficiency, and scalability. Subjects: Networking and Internet Architecture (cs.NI) Cite as: arXiv:2603.04221 [cs.NI] (or arXiv:2603.04221v1 [cs.NI] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.04221 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Massimo Nobile [view email] [v1] Wed, 4 Mar 2026 16:04:39 UTC (655 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Zigbee vs. Matter over Thread: Understanding IoT Protocol Performance in Practice, by Massimo Nobile and 4 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: cs.NI < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-03 Change to browse by: cs References & Citations NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographi