So, what’s the Matter?
MANY HAVE NEVER HEARD OF IT... BUT THE MATTER PROTOCOL COULD BE A MAJOR TURNING POINT IN THE SMART HOME REVOLUTION
THERE’S no doubt about it, the smart home world is nothing short of a shambles. Devices you should be able to control any way you like don’t work with each other nicely, and setting a system up is a frustrating mess.
That is a problem a new protocol for smart home devices hopes to solve. You might have heard of Matter, we have spoken about it before many times on these very pages. It is a massive endeavour – a new system built on top of existing technology by a consortium of all the big players in the business, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Ikea, and Samsung, among many others.
Matter is designed to create a standard that all makers of smart home devices follow so that they all work together. It uses your wi-fi, bluetooth and other over-the-air connectivity technologies to allow smart-home devices to talk to each other in your home.
This means that you ought to be able to forget about which AI assistant you use, every device should work nicely with each other and all the assistants – so if you’re into Alexa, Siri, or the Google Assistant you should be good to go out of the box. And you should even be able to switch assistants at will and everything will still work.
As it stands now, of course, you have to decide which camp you’re in and stick to it – if you have a load of stuff set up with Apple’s HomeKit, there’s every chance it won’t work with Alexa and vice versa.
Matter has been years in the making, and has been delayed several times.
But earlier this year the protocol was finalised, and the consortium behind it – the Connectivity Standards Alliance – revealed the first devices to support it this week.
First up is Eve, a German company that might be the first to support Matter with a firmware update to plugs, window and door sensors, and motion sensors it already has on the market. If you
have any of these three products you’ll be able to update them with the new firmware from December 12.
Philips is also getting out of the blocks early with compatibility for its Hue lighting system, and competing smartlight maker Nanoleaf has said it will release new bulbs and light strips that are compatible with Matter early next year. Others are also on-board.
This is just the start for Matter, and it will be a slow process for manufacturers to get up to speed and join the party.
But a start it is, after much delay. Whether it turns out to be the panacea the smart home world is waiting for remains to be seen. But at the very least it’s a step in the right direction and we may look back in time at this week as the landmark moment where it all really began.
Every device should work nicely with each other and all other assistants