Matter, Zigbee and KNX — which protocol for your house?

This is the question we hear most during a survey. The honest answer is that the protocol follows the state of the house, not the other way round.

A house under construction

KNX or an equivalent wired system. The extra cost here is cable, and it is the cheapest thing you will pay across the life of the system. In return: reliability that does not depend on the air, and an operating life measured in decades.

A house already lived in

Zigbee. A mesh running behind the existing switches, with no demolition and nothing exposed. It needs planning for repeater positions — that is our job, not yours.

And where does Matter sit?

Matter is not a competitor to either; it is a layer of mutual understanding above them. Its value is that it stops you being locked to one vendor: today's device stays replaceable five years from now.

The right protocol is the one that forces you neither to break a wall nor to change vendor.