Where before you could find yourself in a situation where you bought smart lamps from two different companies and a switch from a third manufacturer and then discovered that they did not “see” each other, Matter was created precisely so that different products could communicate in the same language and work together. Matter is a new compatibility standard for smart home solutions. It was created by tech giants Apple, Amazon, Google, Samsung and the Connectivity Standards Alliance, and by now most manufacturers of smart devices have joined it. The creation of a new standard gained momentum when the aforementioned tech giants realised that closed solutions that work only with their devices cause confusion and frustration among users, which has become an obstacle to the wider spread of smart homes. Cooperation between devices You can clearly imagine how annoying it is when you have, for example, Hue smart lights, Xiaomi smart plugs that measure electricity consumption, IKEA automatically moving curtains, a smart TV and a smart speaker all connected to the same Wi-Fi network but unable to communicate, let alone work with each other.
The new Matter standard was created to solve such issues. Matter applies to various smart devices and, in addition to smart plugs and lights, will support, for example, smart locks, home appliances, speakers and other smart home devices. Matter is also compatible with different operating systems and allows you to control smart home gadgets from different manufacturers through a single phone application. Updates to come In the next six months, we can also expect devices operating with the Matter standard. For example, in November, the furniture manufacturer IKEA launched a new Matter-compatible hub (control centre for smart lighting), which will soon be able to control other manufacturers’ devices with a software update. Similar updates will soon arrive for devices from other manufacturers, and we will probably already at the beginning of the year also see a huge number of all new smart devices with Matter support. For example, products supported by Eve home kit, which previously only worked with Apple, will soon be able to be controlled by Google, Amazon and Samsung devices using Matter. Other manufacturers will probably do the same, regardless of whether they previously worked with, say, Apple or Amazon.
The first Matter standard will be very simple, allowing, for example, Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa to turn off the lights using voice commands, while more complex programming must be done in a specific manufacturer’s application. Simpler commands, however, can be given across different products.
In order to operate even more smoothly, Matter needs a border router that “translates” signals from different manufacturers into a mutually understandable language. The border router can be any smart enough Matter-enabled device that is always connected to the power network. In this way, the new Apple TV can be used as a border router, probably also Samsung TVs with the SmartThings application, IKEA or Xiaomi Hubs, as well as Nanoleaf lamps, Apple HomePod speakers or smart screen speakers from Amazon and Google, which are always connected to the power network. Matter’s triumph has only just begun, and we will be seeing big leaps in compatibility and ease of use with the next few releases. However, we can already say that the backbone of the biggest obstacle to building a smart home has been successfully overcome, and making your home smarter, safer and more energy-efficient will be much more convenient and easier thanks to Matter.
