Matter is a new standard that aims to fix the smart home’s biggest problems: interoperability, reliability, security, and being easy to use. With Matter, your smart lights, smart lock, smart thermostat, and other smart devices will all work with together, easily. All the major smart home platforms are on board — Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings — and so are almost all the big device brands, from Philips Hue and Lutron Caseta to August, Ikea, and TP-Link. If you see the Matter logo on a product, you know it will work with any other Matter-compatible gadget in your home.
Eve’s Tim Böth is on stage discussing how its smart home devices work with Samsung SmartThings via Matter. “Eve’s smart plugs capture energy efficiency data for SmartThings Energy, the motion sensors provide data to help SmartThings understand your daily routines,” he said. “Our products show how AI can fade into the background.”
Level’s latest lock adds faster performance, built-in door sensing, and Matter support while keeping its “invisible” design.
The GE Cync Smart Dimmer Keypad, which was announced at CES, costs $44.99 and works with Matter-over-Wi-Fi, so you can program it to control any Matter-compatible lighting in your home and use it with any Matter smart home platform.
Common in pro-installs, keypads are useful for activating different scenes, and it’s good to see some affordable options.
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This means you should be able to use them to set up and pair Matter-over-Thread smart home devices, even if you don’t have a Thread Border Router.
Apple’s newer Pro iPhones also support Thread, and while the Pixel 9 series has the hardware, it looks like only the Pixel 10 Pro line is officially certified.
If you need to catch up on what Thread is, listen to the latest Vergecast for a deep dive.
iRobot co-founder Colin Angle on the future of home robotics and then it’s time to learn the story of Thread.
A firmware upgrade for its PowerView Gen 3 platform is now available, allowing users to control their shades locally via Matter platforms, including Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and others.
Hunter Douglas first said it would bring Matter to its smart shades back in 2022, and is finally following through. However, the upgrade is only coming to the gen 3 shades connected to a PowerView Gateway or Gateway Pro.
With plans to launch more than 20 Matter-over-Thread devices, Ikea is embracing Matter in a move to make its smart home simpler and more affordable.
The Swedish retail giant’s latest update for its Dirigeria hub adds the feature in beta. Matter controller functionally means you can add Matter devices from other brands to the hub and control them with Ikea’s Home Smart app. Ikea’s David Granath told The Verge it hopes to send the update to all users by “the beginning of next week.”
The hub is already a Matter bridge, allowing its lights, blinds, and sensors to be used on other Matter platforms (Apple Home, Alexa, etc.). With a Matter controller, Ikea can become a Matter platform in its own right.
Updated July 3, added comment from Ikea.
[homekitnews.com]
After supporting Matter in beta since 2023, the open-source smart home platform is now officially certified as a Matter Controller. This won’t make a jot of difference for users, says founder Paulus Schoutsen, but it’s “the cherry on the cake.”
He added that certification has been a lengthy and expensive process; to certify a controller, you have to test every device type it’s compatible with. And, unlike Apple, Amazon, and Google, Home Assistant supports most Matter devices.
[home-assistant.io]
That’s according to 9to5Mac, which spotted code in the latest iOS 18.4 developer beta suggesting the Home app is dropping support for the older version.
The updated HomeKit, which Apple rolled out in 2023, is required if you want to use Matter devices. If you’re not sure how to upgrade, check out our handy guide for doing so.
The Wi-Fi Alliance and Thread Group have revealed they’re working with the CSA on several solutions to make sure your Wi-Fi router plays well with your smart home devices:
These include features like IPV 6 and multicast discovery, which we want to make sure are consistent and reliable across routers ... The way routers implement their multicast discovery can be broken, and that leads to a pretty bad experience for users ... We need to make Wi-Fi work reliably for all of the IoT use cases.
I’ve experienced network issues setting up Matter devices and keeping them online, and I’m not alone. If Matter can fix Wi-Fi routers, all will be forgiven.
In an interview with The Verge, Vividh Siddha, director of engineering at Apple and president of Thread Group, shared another use case for the Thread radio in newer iPhones.
As well as allowing setup of a Thread device when you don’t have a Thread border router, the Thread radio in the iPhone lets you control devices when the power is out:
But the other important factor is the ability to use your accessories, and some important ones, like your front door lock when there’s a power outage. If you have no infrastructure — your Wi-Fi router is down, your Thread border router is down — and you still want the ability to get into your house or do other things that might be smart home related. Those are some use cases that it’s explicitly designed for, but it’s not limited to that.
The CSA, Thread Group, and Wi-Fi Alliance say they’re working to fix the biggest problems with the smart home standard. In this exclusive interview, I ask them how and when.
SmartWings, one of the first to offer Matter over Thread smart shades, has another first. Today, the company announced its Matter over Ethernet smart shades, which use a single cable to provide power and connectivity — no batteries, Thread, or Wi-Fi required.
Matter compatibility means the shades, which come in roller, zebra, and woven styles, will work with Apple Home, Google Home, SmartThings, Alexa, and other smart home platforms.
ThirdReality’s MK1 Magic Keyboard ($80, launching March) is a Matter smart button. Ingenious!
The function keys are programmable buttons. Just press to activate a scene or control smart devices like lights through Apple Home, SmartThings, or Home Assistant. Mechanical keyboard / smart home nerds rejoice!
“SmartThings for ships is a new integration that uses Matter, the connectivity standard, to connect with compatible ships,” Sean Michael of Samsung Electronics America said during the company’s press conference today.
Apparently, you’ll be able to automate the climate, lighting, and even the engine of your yacht or, you know, cargo ship.
The company announced the price of the Bolt Mission UWB Plus NFC at CES this week. It’s Ultraloq’s first lock to support the new hands-free unlocking technology, and they say it will launch in Q1 2025. It will also support NFC for tap-to-unlock and Matter.
The Ultraloq Bolt Fingerprint Matter, which debuted at CES last year, will go on sale on January 7th for $199.
A former Sonos executive is looking to disrupt the smart speaker market with a new standard for Wi-Fi speakers.
In 2024, smart locks got better; in 2025, they’re going to be truly great.
