Matter 1.0 is here. After hearing for months about how this software standard will bring tremendous benefit to our smart home, users can finally start seeing it in action as it rolls out to new gadgets and old favourites.
More than 500 companies around the world have worked together as part of the Connectivity Standards Alliance to bring Matter to life. With the launch of Matter 1.0 and the start of the Matter certification program, it should now be much easier to find smart home technology that will benefit your day-to-day rather than cause you a lot of headaches.
But what is matter and how will it work? We are here with the answers.
What is the problem?
The promise of smart home technology is that your gadgets can interact with each other to create a system that’s better than the sum of its parts. An example of an ideal world might see you unlocking the smart lock on your front door after coming home from a long day at work and your Amazon Echo Dot (2020) smart speaker might instantly crank up your favorite tunes while an intelligent coffee machine prepares a relaxing drink for you.
Unfortunately, to achieve something like this, you have to spend a lot of time researching whether a device is compatible with the gadgets you already own – and if not, there may be no no alternative.
This is where Matter comes in. Rather than many smaller micro-ecosystems, Matter-enabled devices will all be able to interact as part of a large smart home setup. When buying a new Matter-enabled product, you won’t have to worry about whether it will interact with your existing Google Assitant, Amazon Alexa or Apple Homekit setup, it should just be able to integrate seamlessly.
How will matter work?
Using Matter shouldn’t change the way you currently interact with your smart home setup. Once the update is rolled out to your devices and their smartphone apps, you should be able to continue using everything as you currently do, you’ll just have more options for gadgets you can add to your home. The only thing to be aware of is that different brands do not integrate their products with Matter in the same way.
Some, like Phillips Hue, will make almost all of their existing devices (as well as new ones) compatible with Matter. Like Phillips, the companies will do this via a software update – which for the Hue Bridge will take place in “Q1, 2023”, or January, February or March – which will then bring the devices into the fold of the new standard.
There may be a few hiccups here and there – Philips has to ditch the Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box and Philips Hue Tap Dial Switch Dial for now, and some settings can be reset by the switch – but for the most part , the transition to Matter will be quick and painless.
Unfortunately, this full adoption of Matter will not be possible for all existing smart home devices. For some brands – like Amazon and Google – very old models will be left behind.
If you have the latest smart device like the new Echo Dot (5th Gen), Google Nets Hub Max, or Echo Show 10 (among others), those should get the Matter update. However, models that are more than a few years old won’t necessarily offer the same support. In those cases, you’ll either have to upgrade your smart speakers or forgo the benefits that Matter will bring.
Additionally, even some fairly new models won’t be updated to Matter, with support for the new standard only coming to newly released smart home gadgets from select brands. That’s the case with Nanoleaf’s smart lighting – only new Matter-enabled additions to its Essentials range will adopt the Matter standard.
That said, even if your older gadgets don’t get the update, your existing smart home setup should continue to perform as well as ever. So unless you’re already planning to upgrade it, you shouldn’t need to rush out and replace everything right away.
If you’re looking to buy upgrades, let’s say you’re looking to grab some of this year’s best Black Friday deals on smart home tech, then you’ll want to make sure what you’re buying supports Matter, otherwise, your new purchases could become obsolete quite quickly.
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