Thread is a relatively new smart home standard that utilises a few different frequency bands below 1GHz as well as in the 2.4GHz spectrum. While Thread has been around since 2014, it wasn't a common place thing until 2020, when it was added to the HomePod mini, where it acts as a border router.

While this blog post isn't a deep dive into the technical workings of Thread, its more to highlight what frequencies that it does utilize to make channel planning easier and consideration for it can be accommodated for new deployments.

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What is Thread?

Thread is a very low power consumption wireless standard that is used in a wide variety of smart home devices, including door sensors, smart speakers and more. The open standard of Matter can use Thread its communication network.

What channels does it use?

Worldwide, the official Thread accommodates the 2.4GHz spectrum, the same as 802.11 WiFi. Within the 2.4GHz range, a 100MHz block is used between 2400 - 2500, which is essentially the exact same as WiFi. Within that range, Thread uses 15 different channels.

Apple Border Routers are essentially fixed on channel 25 and are unable to be changed, if this is the case then plan your 2.4GHz deployment around this.

For OpenThread developed by Google, this also uses 915MHz in North America and 868MHz in Europe.