SMART HOME SPECIAL

Confused? Intimidated? A new standard is here to make all your smart home devices work better…

One of the niggling problems with today’s smart home tech is that, as we’ve seen throughout this guide, you can’t simply choose the product you like best and assume it’ll work with the ecosystem you’ve got – you need to scan the specifications carefully to make sure it works with your particular platform. Matter is here to change that, and it’s backed by almost all the major smart home brands.

WHAT’S IT FOR?

Matter is actually the new name for an existing initiative, which had the much less catchy name ‘Project Connected Home over IP’, aka Project CHIP. And while the name wasn’t great, the idea was sound enough: your smart home tech should work like your other tech. You don’t need to worry who makes the Wi-Fi router you connect your laptop to, so why should you need to know who makes your smart home hub, or worry whether your smart bulbs will work with your smart plugs?

So the idea is that you should be able to look for a single word in the specification of a product: Matter. That’s your guarantee that you’ll be able to connect it to what you have… provided, of course, that what you have is Matter-compatible too. And it should be, very soon.

HOW CAN I GET IT AT HOME?

You may already have it. For example, Apple’s iOS 15 has Matter baked into it so the Home app on your iPhone or iPad is already compatible with the new standard. However, it’s important to note that Matter doesn’t compel device manufacturers to implement every part of the full specification – so they might only choose to include basic connectivity and not bother with other features like Matter’s imminent audio streaming standard.

Matter devices were due to start shipping in late 2021 but that’s been put back to the first half of this year, possibly later.

CLOSED ECOSYSTEMS HAVE PREVENTED THE MARKET FOR SMART HOME KIT FROM BECOMING AS BIG AS IT COULD BE

WILL OLDER DEVICES WORK?

That very much depends on the manufacturer. The likes of Philips Hue, Google Nest and Yale have confirmed that they’ll add Matter to at least some of their existing devices, but it’s likely that some firms will see its arrival as an opportunity to sell you the same products all over again.

IS MATTER THE SAME AS THREAD?

No. Thread is a mesh networking technology, designed to connect multiple smart home devices together without any fuss. Apple uses it in its HomePod Mini, Amazon in its Eero Wi-Fi devices, and Google in its Nest hubs – but Thread is just one of several communication methods, like Bluetooth LE or Wi-Fi. Of course, a Matter device may also be a Thread device.

IS MATTER REALLY THE FUTURE?

We think so. Ultimately it’s in the makers’ best interests to ensure interoperability: as tempting as it is to direct your customers into a closed ecosystem that’s expensive and difficult to exit, that also prevents the market for smart home kit from becoming as big as it could be. We mentioned Wi-Fi earlier in this article: imagine if you could only connect to a Netgear router with a Netgear adapter, or a TP-Link one with a TP-link dongle. We’d still be connecting everything with cables.

At the moment you can’t just buy any old smart home device and expect it to work, and if you decide to move to a different smart home platform – or if you want to move from Android to iOS – you may have to replace a lot of your hardware. Once Matter becomes established, that won’t be the case any more… or at least, it won’t be the case if your smart home is based on Matter devices.

We’re cynical about the likelihood of most firms adding backwards-compatibility to their existing smart kit, but the devices you buy later this year and in the future should be much more open.