Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2

I wanted to like it

I got this device because I hoped it would provide a nice, stable platform for interoperating with a bunch of thread devices. Initially, nothing was stable. One of the more recent HomeAssistant releases fixed the stability issues. However, I'm now stuck in integration hell where my Android phone has decided that my (now deleted) Ikea Dirigera-based thread network is its "preferred" network, and it's not possible to change the preferred network without resetting the data on Google Play Services (which is basically a "factory reset" of my phone, and I'm unwilling to do that for such a trivial "delete" operation). The official/supported mechanism to add devices to the thread network? The smartphone apps! Want to do it directly from your HomeAssistant device? Hope you have a Bluetooth adapter, because without one you won't be able to commission anything. And of course HA Green doesn't come with Bluetooth for inexplicable reasons. What a terrible ecosystem. I had such high hopes :'( Maybe the hardware is even good, but without a good software ecosystem it's a piece of junk.

It just worked like it was supposed to

Followed the directions. It was easy to setup and worked just like it was supposed to first time. Range is excellent. Even looks pretty. Recommended.

Easy setup for a beginner

I set it up with Home Assistant Green with Matter running over Threads. It was my missing piece! Home Assistant found it immediately, did a software update. Then it found all my Smart Devices immediately. I had been getting vague errors for days trying to set up my IKEA Matter devices. It just all worked. Excellent.