Red, White & Blue Series Differences

Hey all,

With the announcement of the new Thread/Matter switch, I wanted to share a quick chart that will highlight the differences between the various switches. I’m going to use the 2-1 as a benchmark as this will be the first switch that will have all three protocols implemented.

6/27/24 - Edited to remove Blue switch upgrade to Matter capability.

Description Red Series Blue Series White Series
Protocol Z-Wave Zigbee Thread w/Matter
Upgradeable to Matter No No N/A (included)
Works with SmartThings Yes Yes Yes2
Works with Home Assistant Yes3 Yes3 Yes3
Works with Hubitat Yes Yes Yes4
Works with Amazon Echo No Yes5 Yes6
Works with Google Home Hub No No Yes
Works with Apple HomeKit No No Yes
Works with Philips Hue No No TBD7
Animated Notifications Yes Yes TBD8
Multi-Tap Scene Control Yes Yes TBD9
Smart Bulb Mode Yes Yes Yes
Associations/Bindings Yes Yes TBD10

1. n/a
2. SmartThings only supports Thread on their V3 hubs and their new Smart Station
3. Requires a Z-Wave (Red Series), Zigbee (Blue Series) or Thread (White Series) compatible dongle
4. Only available on the C8
5. Only works on Zigbee enabled Echo’s
6. Only works on Thread enabled Echo’s
7. In theory it should work via Matter integration, but we haven’t tested it as of yet
8. At this time, this switch does not support Animated Notifications - we will work to add this in and at the very least we will provide a way to change the LED bar color
9. At this time, this switch does not support Multi-Tap scene control - we plan to add this, but cannot promise it when the switch launches
10. There is a Matter Binding command-class, but we haven’t tested it enough to make the claim

I’ll add more to this as we know more about the Thread specs.

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Could you explain above ? Will we need to purchase anything additional to make it matter upgradable / compatible ? Thx

Hoping that if Matter takes off updating all my Blue Series switches and pre-order for mmWave Blue Series will allow for this update. As I understand this this updating will require you to insert a cable into the switch and this the wiring harness required because OTA updates are not supported?
This is not a big deal for a one time update just want to understand the process.

Nate

  1. Will require a wiring harness at this time

I’m also curious about this.

Since the time of that original post, it’s been determined that the MG21/24 chips will not be user-updatable from zigbee to Thread (OTA, harness or otherwise) – IIRC, memory issues limitations on the chips won’t allow for that move.

Although either chip can do either protocol, once it’s programmed to do one or the other, then that’s all it can do.

edit - terminology clarification

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Confirming what @hydro311 stated. The original post has been updated.

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