Matter 1.0 is the new standard that brings together smart home devices and smart home platforms from Google, Amazon and Apple. Connectivity Standards Alliancethat is the industrial association that gathers more than 500 specialists in the sector, yesterday officially inaugurated the certification program that will allow Internet-of-things (IoT) products, appliances, sensors and software to be fully interoperable and also compatible with home management.
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The theme is simple. Today the consumer market is in fact dominated, with different power ratios in different countries, by the ecosystems Google Home, Amazon Alexa (Smart Home) and Apple HomeKit. Whenever you buy a smart bulb, sensor, thermostat, surveillance camera or other product, you should always check which software platform it supports. Maybe someone works with Google and Amazon, while another only works with Apple. And then when they are installed in their respective ecosystems of reference, despite being in the same house, they are unable to communicate with each other. Yes, Alexa can’t talk to Google Assistant or Siri or control Google or Apple gadgets and vice versa. In summary it is like moving in an archipelago of independent islands where different languages are spoken. Matter 1.0 aims to break down all barriers and the good news is that Google, Amazon and Apple agree.
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In principio Project CHIP (Connected Home over IP)
It all began in 2019 when Apple, Google and Amazon began jointly developing an open source standard for the smart home. A solution that should have freed consumers from headaches and allowed total freedom. He was called Project CHIP (Connected Home over IP) but with the inclusion of the Zigbee Alliance in close turn everything merged into the Connectivity Standards Alliance. In practice, all the industrial players have neatly arranged themselves under one big hat, sharing the approval of wi-fi technologies, bluetooth low energy and the thread network protocol.
Yesterday’s announcement comes over a year behind schedule, but it is true that the pandemic has slowed down many projects. What really matters is that the Software Development Kit (SDK) is available – aka the software development kit – and can be used by any company without any royalty payments. In addition, there are eight authorized laboratories worldwide for product certification. The machine has started and the first products are expected to land on the market by the end of the year, given that this summer the interoperability tests organized by 280 companies in the consortium, including Amazon, Signify, Google and SmartThings, are went well.
“What began as a mission to unravel the complexities of connectivity has resulted in Matter, a single, global, IP-based protocol that will fundamentally change the IoT,” said Tobin Richardson, President and CEO of the Connectivity Standards Alliance. “This release is the first step in a journey our community and industry are taking to make IoT simpler, safer and more valuable, regardless of who you are or where you live. With global support from businesses large and small, today’s release of Matter 1.0 is more than a milestone for our organization and our members; it’s a celebration of what’s possible ”.
Apple, Google and Amazon ready by the end of the year
Obviously the success of the new standard is in the hands of the giants, but in this round they seem to want to act as avant-garde. Apple iOS 16.1, which is still in Beta and is expected to be released in the coming months, already includes in Settings a new section named Matter Accessories. In practice, the Apple world is ready for the new standard. The same can be said for Google, which in a recent post on the official blog anticipated that in the next Google Home update there will be support for Matter 1.0; those who wish can test its interface in the program Public Preview. Finally, a few weeks ago Amazon, during the presentation of its new product lines (Kindle Scribe, Echo Dot, Echo Studio, Fire TV Cube) confirmed that most of its smart home devices will be compatible with Matter by the end of the year.
One wonders if all the smart home products of each brand and currently available on the market may simply need a software update to enter the world of Matter. There is no single answer as everything will depend on the choices of the respective manufacturers. At the moment the only certainty is that Matter 1.0 only supports product categories related to light bulbs and switches, smart plugs, smart locks, security and protection sensors, multimedia devices including televisions, smart curtains and blinds, door controllers from garage, thermostats and controllers for heating, ventilation and air conditioning.