For people who haven't started their smart home project, my advice is to focus on Thread and Matter. Regardless of growing pains, Thread and Matter work today, have momentum, and are clearly the future.
(Note: The negative article the author linked to under "Matter and Thread are a big mess" to support his position was written by the same person.)
Z-Wave was a pre-IP proprietary standard that was forced towards standardization (Z-Wave Alliance remains a gatekeeper), but its future is unclear at best. Thread and Matter are the spiritual descendants of Zigbee, all of which are based on IEEE 802.15.4.
Also, I've seen posts praising the old protocols because they allow local control, but those concerns are unrelated. Alexa supports Thread and Matter but does not support local control, while HA and HomeKit support Thread and Matter and do support local control.
(Note: The negative article the author linked to under "Matter and Thread are a big mess" to support his position was written by the same person.)
Z-Wave was a pre-IP proprietary standard that was forced towards standardization (Z-Wave Alliance remains a gatekeeper), but its future is unclear at best. Thread and Matter are the spiritual descendants of Zigbee, all of which are based on IEEE 802.15.4.
Also, I've seen posts praising the old protocols because they allow local control, but those concerns are unrelated. Alexa supports Thread and Matter but does not support local control, while HA and HomeKit support Thread and Matter and do support local control.