Smart Home Standard That Matters
11 Jan
Smart Home Standard That Matters
The number of smart devices in our homes is growing fast. All of them from smart door locks and smart speakers to smart light switches and automated window blinds need to communicate in order to operate seamlessly. There are many communication standards developed for smart home devices. In fact, in an average smart home there are probably at least four different ones. Two years ago a new standard emerged. The one to rule them all - the Matter. Many smart home device announcements at this year’s CES indicated support for the Matter standard.
Let's get to know Matter first, if you haven't heard of it yet. Matter is a new standard under development that makes it easy for devices from different manufacturers to work together. Although the smart home equipment industry is relatively young, equipment manufacturers have already set many standards, resulting in equipment incompatibilities as well as headaches for smart home designers and installers.
End-user incompatibilities also affect homeowners, who are often forced to install multiple hubs, bridges, gateways, and apps in order for smart home devices to communicate with each other.
In addition, manufacturers have to provide all the new standards and protocols in their devices, which makes their development more expensive, and puts an additional burden on engineers and programmers who need to familiarize themselves with many specifications, documents and development tools in different and often very different standards. ZWave, Zigbee, WiFi, Thread, BLE, IP, IR, RF RS232,... in general, real chaos!
The situation is perfectly illustrated by the picture below:
Image: Comic by xkcd
The Matter standard promises to solve all these problems. Promises seem to work well - monsters like CSA (ZigBee), Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Huawei, IKEA, Wyze, Samsung SmartThings, Signify (Philips Hue), Schlage, iRobot, Nanoleaf, Schneider Electric, Legrand , iRobot and about 200 smaller companies have announced support for the standard. At least each manufacturer vows to incorporate the Matter standard into their smart home devices, as soon as the standard is ready.
And what will we get? It's simple - every certified device with Matter support can easily work with other certified devices. All devices with Matter support will be marked with a special logo in the form of three arrows.
The solemn release of the Matter standard was planned for the end of 2021. But the developers of the standard have encountered some difficulties in developing specifications. And the Covid-19 pandemic also severely delayed the emergence of the Matter standard on the mass market. In general, developers need time to finalize all specifications, technical documentation and tools (SDKs).
The Matter standard seems to be getting traction with manufacturers and developers. Soon we should see more smart home devices with Matter support on online store shelves.
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