Ubiquiti has released UniFi Network Application 11.0.83 as a release candidate, and the item smart home users will notice is "Matter Thread Device Monitoring". UniFi can now commission Matter-over-Thread devices and show their status and connectivity next to your Wi-Fi and Ethernet clients. LazyAdmin covered the release on 12 October 2026, and Matter Alpha went through the Matter part in detail on 14 October.

Monitoring, not control

UniFi does not become a smart home controller. You will not switch lights or build automations in it. The Matter feature sits alongside whatever you already use, such as Apple Home, Google Home, Home Assistant or an IKEA DIRIGERA hub, and only collects diagnostic data.

For each device you add, UniFi can show the manufacturer, model, firmware version, battery level and signal strength, where the device reports them. Thread devices appear in the topology view, connected through their Thread border routers. The new Time Machine on the topology page lets you go back through the last 24 hours and see when a device dropped off. For Thread, where most apps only say "not responding", that is the useful part.

How to set it up

The feature is under Settings > Matter. UniFi finds Thread border routers on its own; LazyAdmin's test network showed its IKEA DIRIGERA right away, and lists Apple TV, HomePod, Google Nest Hub and Amazon Echo as other examples. Individual devices are a different story. You add each one with a Matter pairing code generated by your existing controller; Matter Alpha says this appears to rely on Matter's multi-admin feature. Matter Alpha notes there is no bulk import, so a home with dozens of devices means a lot of codes.

Ubiquiti lists three requirements:

  • a UniFi OS gateway running version 6.0.10 or newer;
  • mDNS enabled;
  • IPv6 enabled on the network that hosts the Thread border routers.

The last one trips people up. Many users turn IPv6 off on their IoT VLAN, and LazyAdmin points out that UniFi leaves it off by default. Without it, the Thread side stays invisible.

Read the rest of the release notes first

This is a big release, so read the whole list before upgrading. The application database moves to PostgreSQL and a new statistics engine starts with an empty history, so your existing statistics are wiped. Support for the old USG gateway is gone (10.6 is the last version that supports it), all sites are migrated to the zone-based firewall, and the upgrade can take up to 20 minutes. Other additions include live traffic flows and Wi-Fi uplink as a backup internet connection on gateways with a built-in radio. While it is a release candidate, a home lab is a fine place to try it; a network other people depend on can wait for the final version.