What is Matter and what does it mean for my smart home?

Do you have an absurd collection of devices in your home that don’t work together? Do you wish your Siri would get over her beef with Google Home so they could interact with one another? 

Incompatibility woes begone, Matter has arrived.

Matter is a connectivity standard that makes establishing and managing your smart home easy. It’s not another platform to add to your ever-growing list of smart home devices, and it's not another app that'll just take up space in your phone. 

The dream of many smart homeowners is for their devices to run seamlessly in the background. For their home to become simplified and interconnected. The main obstacle in the way is that the smart home market is saturated with brands begging for your cash. 

Here’s the TL;DR. If two devices can speak the same language, they can communicate and interact with one another. Platforms like HomeKit and Alexa speak different languages, so Matter introduced a new universal language. This means that regardless of platform or manufacturer, your devices can play nice and interact with one another. 

Matter is all about the freedom that comes with mixing and matching devices and voice assistants. This is called interoperability, the very bread and butter Matter is built on. Your device’s feature set should be the priority, not its Apple HomeKit or Google Home compatibility. 

The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA)’s mission is to develop and evolve the current tech standards, with Matter at the forefront. Industry standards in tech are responsible for ensuring the essential elements of your device work as they should. If you buy a keyboard or a monitor, you’d expect it to work with your computer. If you buy a security camera, you’d expect it to connect to your home Wi-Fi network. 

Matter-enabled devices are governed by the same connectivity standard. If you buy a Matter device, you’d expect it to work with other Matter devices.

Think of Thread as a boat. Matter is the captain that leads the boat to shore, and your smart home devices and platforms are the passengers. Passengers don’t have to take the boat, though. They can take the yacht (Wi-Fi) or the kayak (Bluetooth). Either way, the captain (Matter) will still take its passengers (your smart home devices) where they want to go (the internet). 

The difference is that the boat is faster, more reliable, and more responsive to the clientele on board. 

Most homes in Australia use Wi-Fi. It's a quick, wireless connection to a local area network (LAN) or the internet, and smart home devices routinely use it to communicate. One of the drawbacks is that Wi-Fi is power-hungry, so it’s not as well suited to battery-powered devices.

Matter and Thread were created with smart home devices in mind. As such, Thread uses a low-power, low-bandwidth mesh networking protocol. This mesh network is what makes Thread so special. With every device added to the network, the stronger it becomes. Your devices become a commune hosted by your home. If the internet goes down or a device is unplugged, they share the load and keep operating.

Thread is ideal for battery-operated, low-bandwidth smart home devices. Things like smart locks, motion sensors, and lights. As for security cameras and high bandwidth devices, Wi-Fi and ethernet will still be your go-to.

You don’t need to have an in-depth knowledge of the way Matter and Thread work to plan your ideal smart home. However, if you want to get the most out of Matter, you'll need a basic understanding of its main components. 

Controllers are the brains of the operation. They act as a connection between the Internet and the Matter network. They're also in charge of managing its incoming and outgoing communications. A controller can be anything that controls your Matter devices, like a smart hub, smart TV or a Matter-enabled app. 

If it can create routines, automation, or remotely access your device, it’s a controller. Your controller can act as a border router too, so you won’t need to buy more than one. 

Devices like Samsung’s SmartThings Hub, Amazon’s Echo 4th Gen, Google’s Nest Hub, and Apple’s HomePod can all act as controllers and border routers. The catch is it always needs to be on and connected to your home network’s Wi-Fi or ethernet.  

Smart home devices typically communicate via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Matter-enabled devices can communicate using Thread or Wi-Fi, but never both. Border routers bridge the gap between your Wi-Fi network and Matter devices. They connect your smart home devices together, then to the internet.  

Any product that’s compatible with Thread can be a border router. Like controllers, they need to be on and connected to your home network at all times. Your best bet is to locate devices that are both border routers and controllers. Many Wi-Fi routers from Amazon and Google can access the Thread network, but cannot control any of the connected devices. 

Bridges are responsible for connecting an incompatible device to the Matter ecosystem. Phillips Hue Bridges and Aqara Hubs are common choices. Matter is still in its early stages, so if you bridge an incompatible device you might lose some of the features you know and love.

Matter is designed to be a zero-touch experience. Take your device out of the box, plug it in, and Matter will automatically connect it to your home’s ecosystem. 

Matter is fairly new, so it has limited functionality. As of version 1.3, you can turn devices on and off and send notifications to devices like smoke alarms. You can also remotely lock and unlock smart locks and send notifications to connected devices. This means your dishwasher can send your TV a message when it's ready to be emptied, and your smoke alarm will tell you when its batteries need changing. 

Matter’s mission is to enlist as many smart home brands as possible. A robust connection of devices that work seamlessly with Matter will make the lives of smart home users even simpler than it already is. 

With more and more devices added to the Matter ecosystem, your morning could look a little different.

Upon waking up, you’ll turn off your alarm. This action activates the lights in your house. Once the lights are on, it’ll activate your coffee machine, so you can save time making your morning brew while you shower. Once you’re out the door, your smart locks will lock up the house and your robot vacuum will begin tidying up the floors. 

Matter isn’t the pioneer of the interconnected smart home, but it’s making strides. Hopefully, this one won’t turn on you like HAL 9000. 

Matter isn’t the promised land it seems on paper—at least, not yet.

There’s a glaring gap between the walled garden ecosystem and Matter functionality. If you buy an Apple device, you have no control over the installed operating system or the apps you want to download. If it’s not on the app store, it can’t be downloaded on an Apple device (without jailbreaking it, of course). How Apple’s products integrate with Matter is also in their hands. 

Even though you might be able to use Siri to operate Google Assistant, Apple still has the upper hand in how they implement the standard. Will they make the process enjoyable and seamless? If we’re being honest, probably not. At the end of the day, you may need to tweak your settings or say goodbye to some advanced features.

What about older hardware? Most people are unlikely to replace their smart home tech if there’s nothing wrong with it. Even though it’s likely Matter will grant older devices access to the Matter ecosystem, some devices will be incompatible, full stop.  

Matter has ways to go before it’s ready for the mainstream. It's not a silver bullet for all your smart home issues, but it will make interacting with and operating your smart home easier.

Matter is designed to be secure.

Devices in the Matter network will connect to the hub, which then establishes a trusted, secure connection to the internet. Devices that communicate with one another do so via Thread.

Devices that rely on cloud servers are more likely to become subject to cyber-attacks. Thankfully, Matter-enabled devices are locally controlled, meaning they don't rely on the cloud. Even though the Matter network communicates with the internet, it's strongly encrypted. This protects the interactions that take place between devices over a Matter network.

Local connections over Thread are secure thanks to IP (Internet Protocol) and AES (Advanced Encryption Standard). IP encryption wraps your information in a protective package. As it passes through the internet, nobody can see what's inside. Even if somebody intercepts your package, they won't be able to get inside without the right key.

AES works in a similar way. If your information is under lock and key, only the user with the key can view your information. Banks and government computers use this standard to safeguard their sensitive data, so you know it's the real deal!

Additionally, the CSA has established security and privacy principles to ensure you understand how your data is used. These principles delineate how your data is collected and used by the device manufacturer. 

It's important to note that Matter is not a privacy panacea. There's no guarantee your hub and connected devices are 100% protected from cyberattacks. What Matter does do is provide a set of standards to secure your devices and allow them to safely interoperate. 

Matter has been in the works since 2019. Its 2020 debut was delayed until the following year, and up until 2022, it received incremental updates before heading to market. In May 2024, Matter 1.3 was released, offering support for new devices like dryers, ovens, and cooktops. 

As Matter gains popularity over the next few years, Matter will add more devices to the ecosystem. Old devices may be added with a firmware update, while others, unfortunately, might never become compatible. 

Matter has potential. It's endorsed by some of the biggest hitters in the smart home game, like Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, Arlo, and TP-Link. But it's not going to create a self-aware smart home that instinctively responds to your every beck and call. What it will do is make your life easier and broaden your smart home horizons. Ideally, you’ll select a device based on what it can do, not whether it’s compatible with Apple HomeKit or Google Home. 

Matter is not the utopian solution to all your smart home problems. What it will do is make setup, management, and control of your devices easier. You'll be able to control them if the internet goes down, and you'll be able to control devices from different platforms with ease. While it might not be ready for the mainstream just yet, we're excited to see where it goes from here.