Thread has a new app to take the guesswork out of smart home troubleshooting

If you’ve ever tried setting up a full home of smart devices over Wi-Fi, you already just how messy that can get — and fast. When you’re connecting every smart lightbulb to your router, you’re quickly going to find yourself drowning in devices — and good luck being able to successfully diagnose any connectivity issues. That’s just one of many reasons why you might want to use Thread’s wireless mesh technology, instead. And this week, the Thread Group is sharing a few of the ways that using Thread is about to get even better.

For starters, we get a little update on the whole Thread ecosystem, and right now there are over 240 member companies, producing over 1,100 Thread-certified products. With both those numbers on the rise, if you haven’t yet tried using Thread when setting up a new smart home device, it’s more and more likely you might get that chance with the next product you bring home.

With that many different Thread devices out there, there’s always the unlikely chance that two or more don’t end up playing nicely together. Thankfully, the Thread Group is introducing its new Thread Tools app for both iOS and Android, empowering users to easily get a look at their whole mesh network, all at once — and hopefully resolve any troublesome clashes. Beyond just being a handy troubleshooting app for home users, the app should also aid professionals in setting up new Thread device installations. And with Thread Tools being released under an open source license, independent developers are welcome to help improve it with new features.

We’re also learning about a new feature coming to certain Thread-certified devices called Thread Direct. Normally, Thread hardware interfaces with each other over its mesh network, communicating with the outside world over a border router that connects it to the rest of your network — you may already have one of those, with devices like Google’s TV Streamer pulling double duty as a Thread border router. But when you don’t need a whole network of connected devices, Thread Direct offers a simple way for two Thread products to work with each other, with minimal setup needed — you can get started with just a Thread-enabled phone. This could be something like a remote control and the hardware it works with, as an alternative to Bluetooth or infrared.

Finally, the Thread Group shares word of a new partnership, as it inks a liaison agreement with the Broadband Forum. The hope is that this arrangement will streamline Thread setup, reduce incompatibilities with hardware like broadband routers, and just make it easier for users to get the support they need.