“Stupid” answers matter
December 29, 2022Retrospective – A look back to move forward
January 4, 2023What is Matter?
Matter, formally known as Connected Home over IP, is an open source, IP based protocol that has been stirring up the smart home Community ever since it was introduced in 2018. With large claims of connecting all of the smart home platforms and devices together, how could people not get excited about this?
Why does Matter exist?
The Matter smart standard was created initially by a number of big companies in the smart home tech space, including Apple, Google, and Amazon. Their goal was to make one standard to allow all smart home devices to work together. If a consumer was to go online and search for a smart plug that they wanted to add to their home, they would get hundreds of results. These results are unreliable because not all those devices will work with your smart assistant of choice. Figuring out which products work with the users existing smart home assistant adds a layer of complexity and inconvenience for the customer. This may result in extra stress and deter the customer from even buying one of these products in the first place. It might even sway the customer to switch to a different ecosystem entirely if the one that they are currently in doesn’t have the features, devices, and/or support that they are looking for.
How does it work?
Matter is built off two networking protocols; Wi-Fi and Thread. Thread is a low-power and low-latency wireless mesh networking protocol. The advantages of Thread include better range, security, and reliability. In addition to addressing issues of interoperability and points of failure. Due to the mesh-network, if one device becomes unresponsive, the intranet-work can self-heal and keep working without any noticeable loss of service.
Let’s dive into what makes Matter actually matter.
I will use my home as an example. I currently use google Nest Minis throughout my house which use Google Assistant. Currently, I own an iPhone which does not play well with the voice assistant that I chose. Matter aims to solve this issue. The goal someday is to allow users to use any voice assistant of choice to control all their smart home devices. For example, I would be able to tell Siri on my iPhone to play music on my Nest Mini in my living room.
This almost sounds too good to be true. But it’s happening and it’s here! Matter 1.0 was officially released on 4 October 2022. Around this time next year, there should be a plethora of new devices to choose from that will support this new standard. Empowering customers with the peace of mind that their devices will work seamlessly together on their home network with their smart home assistant of choice.
