< p >Just after we announced pre-orders for the new ZemiSmart Roller Shade motor with Matter over Thread, the company followed up with an update to their original HomeKit-compatible Zigbee hub. If that confuses you at all, as they also recently released a Matter-compatible hub, you're not alone. However, there is a method to the madness (sort of). ZemiSmart's second Zigbee hub While the aforementioned Matter-compatible hub with an included Thread Border Router is of interest to most people, this would be the real deal if you're only interested in using HomeKit and looking for a slightly broader list of compatible devices. successor to their original hub, as the Matter hub still doesn't make as many devices available – Zigbee locks are one such category that the Matter hub has apparently yet to support. Eventually, of course, Matter will catch up, but it really depends on whether you're willing to wait for that to happen. You're probably wondering what this new 2nd generation hub offers compared to the original. Well, it's still essentially a Zigbee 3.0 hub, as before, but with that addition of an antenna, the company claims the hub's range to kids' devices is a lot stronger and more consistent. The hub still requires an ethernet connection, but the power supply has been upgraded to use USB-C and they ditched the LED ring light, which was of no use anyway. Since this isn't a Matter-compatible hub, connecting to platforms like Google and Amazon will use what I call legacy connectivity, via the cloud. However, this is not relevant if you are a HomeKit user. You can pick up the new hub today from ZemiSmart's online store for €44.40.< /p >