Currently, the smart home market is too diverse and fragmented with little to no interoperability. This limits a customer’s choice for expansion once they invest in a device. The lack of interoperability between brands means they must selectively pick up devices that work in their existing ecosystem. Matter solves this problem by enabling a global standard for smart home devices. Matter-compliant devices will be interoperable irrespective of the brand that manufactures them. This allows you to pick any device without worrying if it will work on your existing smart home ecosystem. You just have to look for that Matter logo. And since pretty much every brand has pledged support, the new standard will soon become omnipresent.
Matter-certified smart home devices will soon hit the market
Following nine test events and a final Specification Validation Event (SVE), the first Matter specification (Matter 1.0) was released about a month ago. No less than 40 global companies participated in those tests. Since the final release, 190 products have received or applied for Matter certification. That number will grow exponentially in the coming months as the CSA has reported 4,400 downloads of the Matter 1.0 specification and 2,500 downloads of the Matter software development kit (SDK). To enable swift certification, the Alliance has opened eight test labs in 16 locations across nine countries. Participating companies have been announcing support for the Matter standard since months back. They have updated their respective platforms to enable the much-needed interoperability of devices. If you’re invested in any of those, such as Samsung’s SmartThings, Google Home, or Apple’s HomeKit, you can expect some changes as the platforms adapt to the global standard. But these changes will make things simpler for us consumers.
