Report: 'Matter' Standard Has 'Undeniable Momentum'

The Verge reports "undeniable momentum" for Matter, the royalty-free interoperability standard that "allows smart home devices from any manufacturer to talk to other devices directly and locally with no need to use the cloud." "Matter was the buzzword throughout CES 2023 this year, with most companies even remotely connected to the smart home loudly discussing their Matter plans."The new smart home standard was featured in several keynotes and displayed prominently in smart home device makers' booths as well as in Google, Amazon, and Samsung's big, showy displays. More importantly, dozens of companies and manufacturers announced specific plans. Several companies said they would update entire product lines, while others announced new ones, sometimes with actual dates and prices. And Matter controllers have become a major thing, with at least four brand-new ones debuting at CES. Interestingly, nearly all of them have a dual or triple function, helping banish the specter of seemingly pointless white hubs stuck in your router closet.... Matter works over the protocols Thread, Wi-Fi, and ethernet and has been jointly developed by Apple, Google, Samsung, Amazon, and pretty much every other smart home brand you can name, big or small. If a device supports Matter, it will work locally with Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings, Apple Home, Google Home, and any other smart home platform that supports Matter. It will also be controllable by any of the four voice assistants.... The big four have turned on Matter support on their platforms, but Amazon's approach has been piecemeal, and aside from Apple, nobody supports onboarding devices to Matter on iOS yet. However, that is shifting: at CES, Amazon announced a full rollout by spring, and Samsung's Jaeyeon Jung told The Verge that Matter support is coming to its iOS app this month. There's still no news on Matter support in Google Home's iOS app. Then there's the whole competing Thread network issue, although that sounds like it will be resolved sooner rather than later.... The Matter device drought should be over soon - although, judging by most of these ship dates, not until at least the second half of 2023. "It's also likely we'll see dedicated bridges coming out that can bring Z-Wave and other products with proprietary protocols into Matter...."

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