How to achieve nRF52 communicate with smart speakers through Thread protocol

[OPQ]

Hi,

How to achieve nRF52 communicate with smart speakers (like Alexa/Google Home/Apple Home Pod ) through Thread protocol ?I found more and more smart speakers they also surpport Thread protocol.

I checked nRF5 SDK for Thread and Zigbee v4.1.0. There is an example. It seems that in addition to nRF52 DK, an RSPi is needed as a border router to interact with internet with Google Cloud.

I would like to ask whether nRF52 can directly interact with smart speakers through Thread technology instead of Need to use border router to connect cloud again. And have any reference demo?

Thanks!

[Øyvind]

Hello, 

I will need to forward this to our Thread team. 

Please note that you may need to move to the nRF Connect SDK in order for it to support this, as the NCS is our most up to date SDK.

Kind regards,
Øyvind

[OPQ]

Hi ,

Thanks!

Yes,I found the relate content https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/1.6.1/nrf/ug_matter_configuring.html .

But it also needs a Thread Border Router. I wonder was that, for example, smart speakers such as Alexa and Google Home, whether nRF52 can directly communicate with them through the Thread protocol without using the border router.

[Øyvind]

Hello,

OPQ said:

Yes,I found the relate content https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/1.6.1/nrf/ug_matter_configuring.html .

Yes, Matter is an open-source application layer that aims at creating a unified communication standard, which bases its communication on e.g. Wi-Fi, Thread, and Bluetooth LE, and uses IPv6-based transport protocols like TCP and UDP to ensure connectivity between different kinds of networks

 

OPQ said:

But it also needs a Thread Border Router

 Yes, it will need the OpenThread Border Router in order to communicate between WiFi and Thread. But in a Thread network alone you do not need this. Please see the Thread documentation on OpenThread Border Router or see OpenThread.io for more information

[OPQ]

Hi,

Thanks!

Could you please share some examples that can show a Thread node can directly communicate with a Alexa/Apple Home Pod? If no example ,where can I find the related instructions?

[Øyvind]

Hello, 

I'm afraid there is no samples available for this. 

I got a final answer from our OpenThread team: 

If vendor allows connecting other devices then it is possible. However I think that most vendors allow only their own devices to connect. In order for thread device to communicate with each other they need to use same channel, pan id and network credentials. vendor needs to provide some way of setting this (commissioning the device).

Kind regards,
Øyvind