Requirements

• Raspberry Pi 4/5 installed with Home Assistant OS -> Raspberry Pi - Home Assistant (home-assistant.io)
• ESP32C6 as a Matter Device that supports OpenThread
• ESP32/ESP32C3/ESP32S3 as a Matter Device tht supports BLE
• Border Router consisting of ESP32/ESP32S3 as the Host Controller and ESP32H2 as the RCP (Radio Co-Processor) that supports OpenThread
• Home Assistant Application on Android/IOS/Web Browser
• Ubuntu/WSL Computer Host
• ESP-IDF minimum v5.3.

Set-up Matter Devices and Border Router

Border Router

There is a Border Router development board by ESPRESSIF available on the market. On this occassion, I choose to construct my own Border Router using ESP32 as the main controller capable of Wi-Fi and BLE communications, and ESP32H2 as the Radio Co-Processor (RCP) capable of OpenThread communication.

• Follow this guide for flashing the RCP firmware to the ESP32H2 -> esp-idf/examples/openthread/ot_rcp at master · espressif/esp-idf (github.com)
• For the ESP32 host controller, follow this guide -> esp-thread-br/examples/basic_thread_border_router at main · espressif/esp-thread-br (github.com)

Generating Manufacture Partition and esp_secure_certificate

A Matter device can be flashed with manufacturer information along with secure certificate using esp-mfg-tool. For brief steps, you can refer to this guide esp-matter-tools/mfg_tool at main · espressif/esp-matter-tools (github.com). Upon successful generation, your project will have out/ folder. You will flash those files after flashing the application firmware.

Matter Device with OpenThread Capability

Several examples are provided by the ESP-Matter, you can choose one to build and flash the firmware to the ESP32C6. For this experiment, I use esp-matter/examples/light_switch at main · espressif/esp-matter (github.com). With several modification to enable the OpenThread and generating the manufacture partition and esp_secure_certificate. For setting the firmware to use the generated partition, follow this guide:

Enter the configuration by entering this command idf.py menuconfig.

1. Enable Device Instance Info Provider, Device Info Provider, and Use Secure Cert DAC Provider.

   Component Config > CHIP Device Layer > Commissioning Options

   

2. Define Partition Address for the manufacture partition. The default is nvs 0x10000 you can optionally change to 0x3E0000 (fctry)

   

3. Config ESP Matter

   Component Config > ESP Matter then:

   • Change DAC Provider Options to Secure Cert
   • Change Commissionable Data Provider Options to Factory
   • Change the Device Instance Infor Provider Options to Factory

   

4. Save and exit

Build and flash the application firmware with the folllowing command:

idf.py build flash

Flash the esp_secure_cert.bin to 0xd000. with the following command esptool.py -p /dev/ttyUSB0 write_flash 0xd000 out/fff2_8001/<generated code>/<generated code>_esp_secure_cert.bin

Flash the factory partition to the nvs address 0x10000 with the following command esptool.py -p /dev/ttyUSB0 write_flash 0x10000 out/fff2_8001/<generated code>/<generated code>-partition.bin

Monitor the device using the following command idf.py monitor

Matter Device with BLE Capability

For this experiment, I use esp-matter/examples/light at main · espressif/esp-matter (github.com) example code. This example is intended for LED devices. We also need to modify several configuration for generating the manufacture partition and esp_secure_certificate. For setting the firmware to use the generated partition, follow this guide:

Enter the configuration by entering this command idf.py menuconfig.

1. Enable Device Instance Info Provider, Device Info Provider, and Use Secure Cert DAC Provider.

   Component Config > CHIP Device Layer > Commissioning Options

   

2. Define Partition Address for the manufacture partition. The default is nvs 0x10000 you can optionally change to 0x3E0000 (fctry)

   

3. Config ESP Matter

   Component Config > ESP Matter then:

   • Change DAC Provider Options to Secure Cert
   • Change Commissionable Data Provider Options to Factory
   • Change the Device Instance Infor Provider Options to Factory

   

4. Save and exit

As the ESP32C3 Dev board that manufactured by AI-Thinker is not addressable LED, then we need to define the LED Pin. Navigate to Component Config > Board Support Package (generic) > LED and configure the pin as follows:

Build and flash the application firmware with the folllowing command:

idf.py build flash

Flash the esp_secure_cert.bin to 0xd000. with the following command esptool.py -p /dev/ttyUSB0 write_flash 0xd000 out/fff2_8001/<generated code>/<generated code>_esp_secure_cert.bin

Flash the factory partition to the nvs address 0x10000 with the following command esptool.py -p /dev/ttyUSB0 write_flash 0x10000 out/fff2_8001/<generated code>/<generated code>-partition.bin

Monitor the device using the following command idf.py monitor

Configuring the Border Router

Open your web browser and enter the following URL http://homeassistant:8123/ to configure the Home Assistant. You may need to create an account for loggin in on the HA. Upon successful login you can configure the HA, navigate to Settings > Devices & Services

You may need to install several add-ons, including:

• Matter (BETA)
• OpenThread Border Router
• Thread

Upon installing all the add-ons, we continue to configure the ESP Border Router to the Thread Network.

Click configure and add the OpenThread network dataset. Then, click the three dots to add the recognized ESP-BORDER-ROUTER as the preferred network.

The Border router will then elect itself as the Thread Leader

Commission Matter Devices

The BR is ready to be used and we can add Matter Devices using Home Assistant application. Open your mobile application and navigate to Settings > Devices & Services > Devices and click Add Device and choose Add Matter Device. Do these steps for each Matter device.

Commission the device by scanning the QR code generated by mfg-tool. Follow all the steps until the device successfully commissioned.

At this point your dashboard will look like this and you can control the devices.

Now the network has the topology as follows, which shown on the border router web server:

When we control the End Device, in this case is light, through OpenThread, the BorderRouter will pass the data.

Optionally, you can also add automation to trigger the LED when the switch is pressed. You can do this by navigating to Automation Page and configure as follows:

You can also read each device information by navigating to Settings > Devices & Services > Click Matter Device. You will see a list of devices:

You can also see their information in more details.

Bonus

Here's the real condition of my experiment