ideal smart Home seamlessly anticipates your needs and responds immediately to your commands. There’s no need to remember the exact combination of voice commands and voice assistants to open specific apps for each appliance or launch the latest episode of your favorite podcast on the nearest speaker. Competing smart home standards have made device operation unnecessarily complicated. Not very… well, not very smart.
Tech giants are trying to go beyond the norm by offering voice assistants as a control layer, but Alexa can’t talk to Google Assistant or Siri or control Google or Apple devices, or vice versa. (And so far, no single ecosystem has created all of the best devices.) But these interoperability issues may soon be resolved. It is an open source interoperability standard formerly called Project CHIP (Connected Home over IP). problem Arrived in 2022. With the biggest tech companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google on board, seamless integration may finally be a reality.
Update May 2024: Added news of the release of the Matter 1.3 spec, progress with key players, a section on what you can do with Matter, and more details on potential features.
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What’s going on?
Matter enables diverse devices and ecosystems to function seamlessly. Device manufacturers must comply with Matter standards to ensure that their devices are compatible with smart home and voice services such as Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, Google Assistant, and others. For those building a smart home, Matter allows you to theoretically buy any device and control it using your favorite voice assistant or platform. (Yes, you can use different voice assistants to talk to the same product.)
For example, you can buy a Matter-enabled smart light bulb and set it up with Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant, or Amazon Alexa without having to worry about compatibility. Currently, some devices already support multiple platforms (such as Alexa or Google Assistant), but Matter will expand support for those platforms and make setting up new devices faster and easier.
The first protocol runs on the Wi-Fi and Thread network layers and uses Bluetooth Low Energy for device setup. It supports a variety of platforms, but you need to choose which voice assistant and app you want to use. There is no central Matter app or helper. Because Matter works on your local network, you can expect your smart home devices to be more responsive to you and should continue to work even if your internet goes down.
What makes the problem different?
The Connectivity Standards Alliance (or CSA, formerly Zigbee Alliance) maintains the Matter standard. What sets it apart is its broad membership (over 550 technology companies), its willingness to adopt and merge different technologies, and the fact that it is an open source project. Interested companies can integrate their devices into the Matter ecosystem using a royalty-free software development kit (SDK). This is much simpler than authenticating devices individually on each smart home platform.
Growing in the Zigbee Alliance gives Matter a solid foundation. Bringing the major smart home platforms (Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings) to the same table is an achievement. While it’s optimistic to imagine Matter seeing smooth adoption across the board, it’s enjoyed a frenzy with many smart home brands, including August, Schlage, and Yale, getting on board with smart locks. Belkin, Cync, GE Lighting, Sengled, Signify (Philips Hue) and Nanoleaf in smart lighting; Arlo, Comcast, Eve, TP-Link, LG, etc.
When did the material arrive?
The problem has been going on for years. Project CHIP’s first release was scheduled for release in late 2020, but was delayed until the following year, rebranded as Matter, and then touted as a summer release. After another delay, the Matter 1.0 specification and certification program began in 2022. SDKs, tools and test cases were provided, and eight accredited test labs were opened for product certification.
The first wave of Matter-enabled smart home devices began selling in the fall of 2022, and have been steadily trickling in ever since. The first update to the specification, Matter 1.1, was released in May 2023 and consisted mostly of bug fixes. Matter 1.2, released in October 2023, adds support for nine new device types, including refrigerators, robot vacuums, and air purifiers, and improves existing categories.
The Matter 1.3 specification was released in May 2024 and added energy management, EV charging, and water management, along with support for new devices including ovens, cooktops, and clothes dryers. Matter Casting has also been improved so you can cast from your phone to your TV, as well as allowing other smart devices, such as a robot vacuum cleaner, to send a message to your TV alerting you when it’s frozen.
