Meet Matter 1 0 Why Google Apple and Samsung are holding hands in the smart home TechRadar Skip to main content TechRadar is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's why you can trust us. Meet Matter 1 0 Why Google Apple and Samsung are holding hands in the smart home By Jeremy Kaplan last updated 5 October 2022 Why Matter will finally matter (Image credit: CSA) I have a home security system and an outdoor security camera, but they don't talk to each other, nor do they support the same platforms, either Google Home or Amazon Alexa or Apple HomeKit, or whatever. And I bet that conundrum sounds familiar to you. Because let's face it, today's smart gadgets kinda suck. There, I said it. The smart home today is built on an uneasy bed of loose gravel, a mishmash of protocols and "standards" that rest next to each other and maybe sorta fit together but really don't provide any solid foundation. And that's no way to build a home, smart or otherwise. And the answer may have just arrived: Today the Connectivity Standards Alliance, a freshly renamed group of more than 550 tech companies including Apple, Google, Amazon, and loads of other big names, unveiled version 1.0 of the new Matter specification, which aims to solve the key problem you, me, and everyone else sees with today's smart home. "The proliferation of all of the different protocols … it was head-spinning and it wasn't really helping anybody," Michele Turner, Senior Director of Google Smart Home Ecosystem told TechRadar. Everyone's responsible, too: Google created a protocol to fix this chaos, called Android Things, and promptly killed it. Matter is ostensibly a solution that will make the smart home easier and faster to use, more reliable, and more interoperable. It'll make it work, at last. What's it all mean for you? To find out, TechRadar spoke with several of those companies to get a full picture of the new standardWhat's compatible with Matter 1.0? (opens in new tab)Google Nest Mini (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$49.99 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)See all pricesReduced Price (opens in new tab)Amazon Echo (4th gen) (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$99.99 (opens in new tab)$59.99 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)See all pricesDeal ends Thu, Oct 13 (opens in new tab)Apple HomePod mini (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$99.99 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)See all prices (opens in new tab)Google Nest Audio (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$99.99 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)See all pricesReduced Price (opens in new tab)Samsung SmartThings 3 (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$344.97 (opens in new tab)$314 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)See all pricesReduced Price (opens in new tab)Samsung Q90T (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$1,698.99 (opens in new tab)$1,500 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)See all pricesWe check over 250 million products every day for the best prices Why collaboration matters to Matter Go to the store today and buy a smart doorbell or lightbulb and most ordinary consumers will have no idea whether it will work with their existing devices, their Alexa speakers, or Google Home gizmos. Will my iPhone control this? Can it talk to my Galaxy? Who knows? Technology, it turns out, has made simple things like doorbells harder to use, rather than easier, and the tech giants know this. "We have a saying at Google," Turner told me. "If it's not as fast and reliable as a light switch, why are you doing it?"Matter: Cut to the chase What is it? Matter is a new interoperability standard between smart home devices Who supports it? Apple, Amazon, Google, Samsung and over 550 other companies When will it launch? Matter launched Oct. 4, 2022 Which devices will it support? Good question! When will my device be updated? We anticipate seeing a wave of product updates in early November. But that's the unfortunate reality of smart home today: I watched a demo recently from a major tech manufacturer, who pushed a button on a smartphone … and 10 seconds later, a light went out. The smart home today feels just like that: Harder to use and less reliable than a light switch. One of the problems was the lack of collaboration: For a CE giant to win, it felt like consumers had to lose. "You gotta realize at this time, ourselves and Amazon were just battling it out for who could get the biggest ecosystem," Google's Turner said. "But we realized that consumers were getting a mix of devices in their home. And just like they've got Android and iPhones in their homes, they've got Google Home devices and Alexa devices. And we wanted to make sure we were doing the right things by consumers." That's a breath of fresh air, and frankly unheard of in the tech industry, where standards wars have been waged since the golden days: FireWire vs. USB, CompactFlash vs. MemoryCard, Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD, and on and on. Matter is different. Perhaps it's due to the foundational support of the world's largest companies; Matter came from a partnership between Amazon, Apple, Google, and eventually Samsung. You see, even just five years ago, smart home devices were a mishmash of different standards and brands vying to own the world. Zigbee, Zwave, and SmartThings were the main protocols, connecting via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and more, while platforms abounded, from Apple's HomeKit and Google Home and Amazon Alexa to the proprietary systems used on Samsung devices and Comcast TVs and … well, you get the picture. It was a mess. It still is. If it's not as fast and reliable as a lightswitch, why are you doing it?Michele Turner, Google "As we looked at this notion of standards, it was not just Zibgee radios but the language they were carrying over the top," explains Tobin Richardson, CEO and President of the CSA. That's the Connectivity Standards Alliance mind you, the IoT focused group pushing one protocol to rule them all, and not the Consumer Technology Alliance, the folks behind CES. The CSA was once the Zigbee Alliance, and that protocol today forms one leg of the new Matter standard. But Zibgee was doing too much all at once, he explains. To move ahead, things needed to get simpler. "Zigbee defined the language and the radio. We split them," he told TechRadar. "That was a sea change for the organization." Here s the takeaway So what does it all mean? Here's the nut of it: Whereas a Zigbee device once had a Zigbee radio communicating using Zigbee standards, going forward a Matter device will "speak" Matter and use whatever protocol it wants to communicate. That will involve Bluetooth Low Energy for initial pairing, which happens more quickly thanks to some recent tweaks to that spec. But it can happen across any of those many existing communication channels. The language spoken across those channels is what's finally unified. The Matter alphabet and language define the simple stuff: I am a lightbulb. I turn on and off. I can become Fuschia or tangerine or teal. More advanced functionality is possible for anything, of course, it just won't be part of Matter (for now, anyway). If Philips decides its next line of Hue smart lightbulbs will all sing a sea shanty when you triple tap a certain spot on them, that functionality will exist outside of the Matter spec. But it can and should exist … well, maybe not THAT specific feature, but you get the point. That all sounds great but getting there wasn't easy. Matter will leverage development work and protocols from many existing systems including Amazon Alexa's Smart Home, Apple's HomeKit, Google's Weave, The Alliance's Zigbee Cluster Library (a.k.a. Dotdot), and more. And it'll take time to be integrated into the stuff you own, and the stuff soon to come out on shelves. What Matter means for you Go to the store today and buy a smart doorbell or lightbulb and most ordinary consumers will have no idea whether it will work with their existing devices, their Alexa speakers or Google Home gizmos. Will my iPhone control this? Can it talk to my Galaxy? Who knows? Matter changes all of that. Here's what it means for the Big Four: Apple: Matter accessories will be supported seamlessly by the Home app and Siri on Apple devices including HomePod mini and Apple TV, regardless of whether they were built by Apple or built to support Apple's HomeKit protocol. To that end, Apple will roll out an all-new Home app this fall. And, once Matter launches, Apple will update its software platforms to include support for Matter for all users. Google: Google tells us its goal is to make any Nest device that is Matter-capable compliant with the standard and to bring Matter to more device types in the future. "We are actively working to ensure that all Nest speakers, displays, and WiFi are updated to act as Matter Controllers for Google Home," Turner said. (At Google I/O 2022 the company announced that its Google Home, Google Home Mini, Google Nest Mini, Google Nest Hub, Google Nest Hub (2nd generation), Google Nest Hub Max, Google Nest Audio, and Google Nest Wifi devices will all support Matter.) "We want to make sure virtually every user with a Google Home ecosystem is ready for Matter devices, and to make it easy for new users to adopt," she added. Samsung: The standalone SmartThings V3 Hub and the Aeotec SmartThings Hub will be updated to support Matter when it launches in the fall, Samsung told TechRadar. Meanwhile, SmartThings is being integrated more deeply across the Samsung portfolio, with SmartThings Hub software built into select 2022 Samsung Smart TVs, Smart Monitors, and Family Hub refrigerators. These devices will also allow users to connect to a wide variety of existing smart home devices, as they will be updated to get Matter as a controller support, as the new standard becomes available. Samsung says it also plans to support Matter as a controller on our SmartThings Hub V2, letting existing users connect and control Matter devices. Amazon: Amazon has confirmed that its Echo 4th gen smart speaker and Eero mesh routers will support Matter – though it's not yet clear which, if any, of its older Echo devices will. So when will Matter matter to me Matter's still a work in progress, despite the release of the specification, which really opens the door to a certification process for the first group of 50+ companies that have been part of the testing process. We anticipate seeing updates to support Matter from some of the top brands in early November, but it's really too early to tell. Matter is a foundational technology. Remember that shaky smart home? So now that the groundwork has been laid, the real work can begin. Here's hoping we end up with something really livable. Jeremy KaplanContent Director, TechRadarAfter 25 years covering the technology industry, Jeremy Kaplan is a familiar face in the media world. As Content Director for TechRadar, he oversees product development and quality. He was formerly Editor in Chief of Digital Trends, where he transformed a niche publisher into one of the fastest growing properties in digital media. Before that, he spent half a decade at one of the largest news agencies in the world, and cut his teeth in magazine business, long before the birth of the iPhone. In 2019, he was named to the FOLIO: 100, which honors publishing professionals making an industry-wide impact. TechRadar Newsletter Sign up to get breaking news, reviews, opinion, analysis and more, plus the hottest tech deals! Thank you for signing up to TechRadar. You will receive a verification email shortly. There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again. 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