Shelly Unveils ThreadLink at IFA 2026

One Thread Radio, Three Ways to Connect - Matter, Cloud, and Direct Device-to-Device Control 

September 3, 2026

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Shelly Group, the company behind the smart home devices Shelly, announced ThreadLink, a new firmware for its Gen4 product line that turns the devices’ built-in Thread radio into a complete, full-featured IP network connection. Unlike conventional Thread implementations that support only a single application protocol, ThreadLink runs the entire TCP/IP stack over the Thread mesh - enabling Matter, Shelly Cloud connectivity, and direct device-to-device communication over the Shelly RPC API to operate simultaneously on a single low-power radio. 

The firmware will be available as a separate, opt-in update for eligible Shelly Gen4 devices. 

Visitors to IFA Berlin (4.–8. September 2026) can see live demonstrations at the Shelly booth (hall 1.2. / stand 110). 

Why it matters 

Thread has become the backbone radio of the modern smart home, but for most products it is a one-trick transport: Matter and nothing else. Cloud features, vendor apps, energy monitoring and inter-device logic typically still require Wi-Fi - doubling radios, power draw and points of failure. 

“Everyone ships Matter over Thread. We asked a different question: what if Thread simply is the network? With ThreadLink, a relay behind a light switch has the same first-class IP connectivity as any Wi-Fi device - Matter for the ecosystems, cloud for our users, and direct device-to-device logic for reliability - on a radio that sips power.” - Dimitar Dimitrov, CEO-Shelly Group

ThreadLink removes that trade-off. Because Thread is a native IPv6 network, Shelly treats it as exactly that: a network, not a silo: 

• Matter, out of the box - devices are exposed natively to Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, SmartThings and Home Assistant. 

• Cloud without Wi-Fi - devices reach Shelly Cloud through any Thread Border Router, using standards-based IPv6-to-IPv4 translation (NAT64) at the network edge. Remote access, monitoring and fleet management keep working - with no Wi-Fi credentials on the device at all.

• Device-to-device control - Shelly devices talk to each other directly across the mesh using the proven Shelly API. Scenes, interlocks and automations execute locally, peer-to-peer, and keep running even if the internet - or the entire Wi-Fi network - goes down.

• Deep Home Assistant integration - a dedicated module integrates ThreadLink devices into Home Assistant with the full Shelly feature set, beyond what the Matter data model exposes. 

How it works 

Shelly Gen4 devices use a multi-protocol radio SoC, supporting IEEE 802.15.4 alongside Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. ThreadLink unlocks the IEEE 802.15.4 radio and brings an openly standardised network stack to the Thread mesh. It combines IPv6 with 6LoWPAN, UDP for fast, responsive communication even in dense device environments, and a first for the category  full TCP support for the reliable transfer of larger data sets, including configuration data, diagnostics, and updates. 

A Thread Border Router - such as a Home Assistant-based router, or third-party routers from the Apple, Google and Amazon ecosystems - routes traffic between the Thread mesh and the home LAN. For cloud connectivity, the border router performs NAT64 translation, allowing IPv6-only Thread devices to reach IPv4 services on the internet. No proprietary gateway, hub or bridge is required at any point: every link in the chain is standard IP routing. 

Security is layered: all mesh traffic is encrypted at the link layer with AES-CCM per the Thread specification; Matter sessions add certificate-based end-to-end encryption (CASE); and cloud connections are protected by TLS, exactly as on Shelly’s Wi-Fi products. 

Availability 

• Opt-in update: delivered as a separate, opt-in firmware for eligible Shelly Gen4 devices. Customers choose per device whether it runs the standard Wi-Fi firmware or ThreadLink. 

• The update is planned to be release in approximately 3 month and will be free of charge, available via the Shelly app and web interface for eligible Shelly Gen4 devices 

• Requirements: requires a Thread Border Router on the home network for cloud access and app control; device-to-device scenes run entirely inside the mesh.