Home Automation Platforms + Matter - Early Observations

For those of us who have been involved in automating homes by adding "smart" devices from light switches to thermostats, cameras, sensors, controllers, etc - there was always a challenge with managing the wide range of devices.

While each OEM had their own app that would allow you to control their devices - you'd often end up with anywhere from 4 - 10 apps that were required to manage the entire home.  And depending on your product choices you also had to have hubs to communicate from your Wifi network to other RF networks like Zigbee or Z-Wave.  With many of these "hubs" they had native support across multiple vendors or you had to add plugins or provide specific OEM support.

Some OEM apps were great, some sucked, but it became challenging to provide a solution for a client where they could easily manage their home on their own.  Between having to maintain multiple credentials/logins across the apps and even communicating which app controls what - it sometimes became an exercise in futility. 

Folks like Apple & Google saw this as a potential opportunity and we started to see the rise of apps like Apple Home and Google Home that tried to create a "single pane of glass" to manage devices from multiple OEMs.   

Apple took one path by creating the HomeKit "standard" which is a set of protocols that allowed devices that were HomeKit certified to be added to an Apple "home" by scanning a QR code during setup.  But this also meant you had to have a hub - a device like a HomePod Mini and/or Apple TV that was always on and was the broker of communication from the Apple Home app and the devices themselves.   

The challenge with this was there was a very limited number of OEMs that supported HomeKit and often the functionality / control in the Home app was less than you had with the native app.   

Google ran down a different path which was to allow you to "link" the backend web services of the various device OEMs by providing that specific OEMs credentials for their native app.  As long as the devices you were installed were WiFi - you didn't need a "hub" device.  If the devices were Zigbee or ZWave you would.   

The good news with this approach was it quickly provide a large portfolio of "services" to be integrated into the Google Home app.  The bad news is like with Apple home - often the functionality provided in the Google Home app was just a subset of what was available in the native app and there was no ability to have Google Home - launch the native app if you wanted more control, then return to Google home when finished.  Plus you have to manage all those multi OEM credentials and links.  And some OEMs never allowed the links.   

The final challenge was with the various OEMs themselves and maintaining their protocols/apps & web services.   It's not cheap to do that and while customers pay a premium for a smart device - keeping up with firmware & app updates can be challenging and frustrating for end users.

The reality is that something had to change to reduce the complexity.

In December of 2019 - Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung and the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA - formally the Zigbee folks) created a new project called Connected Home over IP (CHIP) which was renamed Matter.   

Matter is a royalty-free protocol that OEMs could implement on their devices which would allow their devices to work across any platform - so Alexa, SmartThings, Apple Home or Google Home for example.   

Version 1.0 of the standard was published in October of 2022 and folks like Apple, Google and Samsung have already introduced Matter support for their hubs - so Apple HomePod, Google/Nest displays and SmartThings.   

This means that if you purchase a Matter supported device it would be recognized across all of the above platforms I mentioned and you should have similar if not the exact same management experience across all 3 platforms.  

The next step is then getting Matter support across the devices themselves.  This is going to be where I can see a challenge.  While Matter 1.0 had many of the core Smart Home device types included - the question will be how willing with the OEMs be to update their existing portfolio of device firmware to support Matter ?  And when will they do it ?  

Or will they only implement it on new devices and force customers to refresh their existing devices with Matter supported ones if they want that functionality.  

You can go out to https://csa-iot.org/csa-iot_products/ today and see what products are Matter certified.  You have to filter specifically for Matter as the database is managed by the CSA so it includes Zigbee certified stuff and see what devices actually support Matter today.

For example - today I have a Nest 2nd Gen Wired Doorbell.  Its a relatively new device - so the processor, etc should have the capability to support Matter.  Today the doorbell is NOT listed as having Matter support - so it hasn't completed certification yet.  

I have both a Nest display running Fuschia and an Apple HomePod Mini running IoS 16.4.  So in theory once the doorbell gets a Matter supported firmware - I should be able to see it and control it via either Apple Home or Google Home.  

The question will be when will the OEMs start deploying this at scale and what portions of their portfolio will they provide support for ?

My prediction is that the OEMs will probably support their current generation of devices - but probably not go through the cost/effort to support legacy devices.  

Bottom line is this - we have a new smart device protocol called Matter that should allow for a more seamless experience across multiple management platforms.  

With folks like Amazon, Apple, Google and Samsung behind this - my hope is it will gain traction.  But like any new technology protocol - the proof will be in how the device OEMs support it.  

We'll see what the next 6 months brings and if the OEMS deploy Matter support for their existing devices or force us to buy new ones...