Running Matter devices over Thread (battery sensors, locks) requires at least one Thread Border Router in the home: Apple TV 4K (3rd gen and later), Apple HomePod mini or HomePod 2, Google Nest Hub (2nd gen and later), Amazon Echo (4th gen and later) or Samsung SmartThings Hub.

A Thread Border Router bridges the 802.15.4 Thread mesh to the home Wi-Fi or Ethernet network at the IPv6 layer, and at least one is required for Thread accessories to be reachable from a Matter controller. On the consumer side, Apple ships Thread radios in HomePod mini, HomePod 2 and Apple TV 4K (3rd gen and later); Google ships them in Nest Hub (2nd gen and later), Nest Hub Max and Nest WiFi Pro; Amazon ships them in Echo (4th gen and later), Echo Show and eero Pro 6E; Samsung ships them in SmartThings Station and Hub V3. Multiple Border Routers in the same home are supported and recommended for redundancy; the Thread mesh auto-converges.

Spread Border Routers across the house and across vendors when possible: a single Border Router becomes a single point of failure for every battery sensor, and Thread accessories will drop offline the moment it reboots for a firmware update.