Newsletter
The highly-anticipated Matter smart home standard is finally official, according to Cision. The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) Thursday launched the new standard that aims to simplify the diverse smart home ecosystem by enabling interoperability. The launch event was held in Amsterdam.
Originally called Project CHIP (Connected Home over IP), Matter is a royalty-free home automation connectivity standard. It is a joint effort by dozens of tech companies and organizations, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung, and the Zigbee Alliance, with many more partners. The idea is to reduce fragmentation in the smart home market.
Currently, the smart home market is too diverse and fragmented with little to no interoperability. This limits a customer’s choice for expansion once they invest in a device. The lack of interoperability between brands means they must selectively pick up devices that work in their existing ecosystem. Matter solves this problem by enabling a global standard for smart home devices.
Matter-compliant devices will be interoperable irrespective of the brand that manufactures them. This allows you to pick any device without worrying if it will work on your existing smart home ecosystem. You just have to look for that Matter logo. And since pretty much every brand has pledged support, the new standard will soon become omnipresent.
Matter-certified smart home devices will soon hit the market
Following nine test events and a final Specification Validation Event (SVE), the first Matter specification (Matter 1.0) was released about a month ago. No less than 40 global companies participated in those tests. Since the final release, 190 products have received or applied for Matter certification. That number will grow exponentially in the coming months as the CSA has reported 4,400 downloads of the Matter 1.0 specification and 2,500 downloads of the Matter software development kit (SDK). To enable swift certification, the Alliance has opened eight test labs in 16 locations across nine countries.
Some big names including Amazon, Apple, Google, and Samsung demoed their respective Matter-certified products at the launch event in Amsterdam. Products showcased ranged across a wide array of categories, including smart plugs, door locks, security sensors, smart lighting, and Matter-based software applications. The standard covers pretty much every device you need to automate your home.
Participating companies have been announcing support for the Matter standard since months back. They have updated their respective platforms to enable the much-needed interoperability of devices. If you’re invested in any of those, such as Samsung’s SmartThings, Google Home, or Apple’s HomeKit, you can expect some changes as the platforms adapt to the global standard. But these changes will make things simpler for us consumers.