I’ve been using Zigbee smart plugs with Home Assistant for years — SONOFF S31 Lites, a few Kasa EP25s, scattered around the house doing energy monitoring and automation. They work great. But Matter smart plugs kept showing up in my research, and the question I kept getting asked was: should I be switching?
The honest answer in early 2026 is: for some people, yes. For most people, not yet. Here’s the full picture.
What Matter Actually Promises for Smart Plugs
Matter is a smart home connectivity standard backed by Apple, Google, Amazon, and the Connectivity Standards Alliance. The idea: one protocol, any platform, guaranteed interoperability. You buy a Matter plug once and it works with Home Assistant, Apple Home, Google Home, and Alexa — pick any, switch any time.
For Home Assistant specifically, the Matter integration is built in and has gotten better with each release. 2026.1 and 2026.2 improved Matter commissioning, reduced pairing failures, and cleaned up entity discovery.
The theoretical upside of Matter plugs over Zigbee:
- No coordinator required — Zigbee needs a USB dongle or hub; Matter over Wi-Fi or Thread can pair directly
- Official protocol — no reverse engineering, no API breaking with firmware updates
- Energy monitoring standardized in Matter 1.2+ — energy data is now part of the spec, not a vendor extension
The catch is that theory and practice aren’t the same thing yet.
The State of Matter Plug Support in Home Assistant: Early 2026
Here’s what I’ve learned running Matter plugs alongside my Zigbee setup:
Energy monitoring entity support is inconsistent. Matter 1.2 standardized the Electrical Measurement cluster, which means energy monitoring is part of the spec. But not every plug correctly exposes all entities, and HA’s Matter integration handles them differently depending on which device profile the plug uses. Some plugs give you power, energy, voltage, and current entities properly. Others show up with only switch and nothing else, even though they have hardware monitoring.
Thread Matter plugs are better than Wi-Fi Matter plugs. Thread is a low-power mesh protocol that runs over 802.15.4 (same physical layer as Zigbee). Matter over Thread is more reliable, has lower latency, and doesn’t crowd your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network. The downside: Thread requires a Thread Border Router — either an Apple TV 4K/HomePod mini, or the HA Connect ZBT-2 which supports both Zigbee and Thread.
Pairing is still more frustrating than it should be. I’ve paired a dozen Matter devices over the past year and the commissioning process has a meaningful failure rate — especially on Android. It’s gotten better, but “scan the QR code and it just works” isn’t a universal experience yet. Zigbee pairing with Zigbee2MQTT is honestly more reliable in 2026.
The Best Matter Plug Right Now: Eve Energy
The Eve Energy (~$35) is the gold standard for Matter smart plugs and has been for two years. It’s Matter over Thread — which is the right combination — and Eve has been shipping Thread hardware since before Matter existed. They know how to do this.
The HA integration is solid. You get a proper switch entity and correct energy monitoring entities when you run a recent HA version (2025.12+). Real-time power, cumulative energy, voltage, and current all show up. The Thread mesh participation is good — Eve Energy acts as a Thread router node, strengthening your Thread mesh the same way SONOFF S31 Lite Zigbee plugs strengthen a Zigbee mesh.
Build quality is premium. Compact form factor. Single-outlet design (no blocking adjacent outlets). And Eve’s privacy commitment means the device works fully locally through Matter — no Eve account required, no cloud relay.
The catch: $35/each is expensive compared to $11 for a SONOFF S31 Lite Zigbee. If you want 10 plugs covering your house, that’s $350 vs $110. The price difference is real.
Best for: Apple Home users, mixed-platform households, or anyone who wants Matter-native devices and is willing to pay for the quality tier.
The Budget Matter Option: Meross MSS315 (~$17)
The Meross MSS315 is a Matter Wi-Fi plug with energy monitoring at roughly half the price of the Eve Energy. Meross actually updated the MSS315 to Matter 1.4 in early 2025, which is ahead of many competitors — and Matter 1.4 improves the energy monitoring spec specifically.
In Home Assistant, the MSS315 pairs via the Matter integration over Wi-Fi. Energy monitoring entities do show up correctly in recent HA releases. Power, energy (kWh), current, and voltage are all there. Automations work fine against those entities.
The trade-offs versus the Eve Energy:
- Wi-Fi instead of Thread (more load on your 2.4GHz network, no Thread mesh participation)
- Occasional drop-out reports in r/homeassistant (a few users report needing to re-pair occasionally)
- Meross app is still in the loop for initial setup, though post-pairing it’s fully local via Matter
The 4-pack brings the per-unit cost down to about $14, which starts making more sense if you want to deploy several.
Best for: Budget-conscious buyers who want Matter but don’t need Thread, and are okay with Wi-Fi-based Matter devices.
Matter vs. Zigbee in 2026: The Real Comparison
Let me be direct: for pure Home Assistant + energy monitoring use, Zigbee is still better value in 2026 and will probably remain so through the end of the year.
Here’s the honest comparison:
| Zigbee (SONOFF S31 Lite) | Matter/Thread (Eve Energy) | Matter/Wi-Fi (Meross MSS315) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price per plug | ~$11 | ~$35 | ~$17 |
| Energy monitoring in HA | ✅ Excellent | ✅ Good | ✅ Good |
| Local control | ✅ Full | ✅ Full | ✅ Full |
| No coordinator needed | ❌ Needs Zigbee dongle | ❌ Needs Thread border router (Apple TV 4K, HomePod, or HA Connect ZBT-2) | ✅ Wi-Fi only |
| Mesh participation | ✅ Zigbee router | ✅ Thread router | ❌ Wi-Fi end device |
| Pairing reliability | ✅ Very reliable | ⚠️ Improving but still occasional failures | ⚠️ Same |
| Multi-platform | ❌ HA-specific ecosystem | ✅ Works with Apple Home, Google, Alexa | ✅ Same |
| Works without HA | ❌ No | ✅ Yes (any Matter controller) | ✅ Yes |
The decisive factor is whether you want multi-platform support. If your household is entirely Home Assistant, Zigbee wins on cost and reliability every time. If you also use Apple Home for automation, or Google Home for some devices, or you want the option to walk away from HA someday without replacing all your hardware — Matter is the right long-term bet.
Who Should Switch to Matter Now?
Switch now if:
- You’re in a mixed ecosystem (Apple Home + HA, or Google Home + HA)
- You’re starting fresh and don’t want to buy a Zigbee coordinator
- You have an Apple TV 4K or HomePod that already acts as a Thread border router
- You’re willing to pay the per-unit premium for future-proofing
Stay on Zigbee if:
- You’re already running Zigbee2MQTT and have a working mesh
- Cost matters (8 Zigbee plugs vs. 8 Eve Energy plugs is a $190 difference)
- You want the best energy monitoring entity coverage in HA right now
- Pairing reliability is critical (kids’ bedroom automations, HVAC monitoring, etc.)
The Bottom Line
Matter smart plugs have arrived. The Eve Energy is genuinely excellent — Thread-based, proper energy monitoring in Home Assistant, premium build quality. The Meross MSS315 is the budget entry point if you want Matter without spending $35 per outlet.
But Zigbee isn’t dead. SONOFF S31 Lite Zigbee plugs are still $11 each, still the most reliable energy monitoring option in Home Assistant, and still the right answer for anyone whose primary concern is HA integration quality and cost.
Matter is where this is all going. Just don’t throw out your Zigbee setup to get there faster than the ecosystem is actually ready.