Matter: What can the new Smart Home standard do?
Until recently, smart home technology was a gimmick for nerds. If you wanted to make your flat or house smart, you had to dig through countless product offers and categories and came across equally complicated and diverse transmission standards. Matter is supposed to end this confusion once and for all. But what is Matter? We’ll show you.
What is a smart home anyway?
First of all, we need a definition of what is meant by a smart home. A smart home is a home in which devices such as lights, sockets, sensors, smart devices and the like are networked with each other, can act independently thanks to automation, can trigger commands and can be activated, controlled and updated via the internet.
These smart home problems currently exist
Problem #1: Apple and Google call the shots
So, according to our definition, no Smart Home device can do without a connection to one of the 2 major Smart Home platforms. These platforms are Google Home and Apple Home. These are the control centres with which you can control your Smart Home. Either with Google Assistant, Siri or Amazon Alexa. The latter is a special case because you have to install the corresponding Alexa Skill to control your smart device. We would therefore not call it a platform, as Amazon does not have its own smart home app.
Nevertheless, Google Home and Amazon Alexa are supported by the most products on the market. This is due to the low requirements that Google and Amazon place on the manufacturers of smart home products. Therefore, the products are often cheaper than products that are also certified with Apple Home.
In return, Apple Home devices are significantly safer, as Apple places significantly higher requirements on manufacturers. Those who want to use the “Works with Apple Home” logo must first participate in the MFI programme and have their product certified. Since this is associated with higher costs for the manufacturers, not all of them go this route. However, there are also manufacturers such as Eve that only operate in the Apple ecosystem.
So you see: it is currently easy to reach for the wrong product. Moreover, the commitment to one system complicates a move from Android to iPhone and vice versa.
(There are also other ecosystems such as Homematic or Bosch, but we will disregard them due to their low relevance for this article).
Problem #2: “Stupid” technical junk
Another problem are smart home products that can only be controlled via the manufacturer’s cloud. If the manufacturer goes bankrupt – which has happened many times in the past – a smart device has become a dumb device, in the worst case nothing more than technical junk. Since smart devices are more expensive than non-smart devices, this is particularly annoying, especially if you use several products from this manufacturer. Such cases rightly spoil the desire for a smart home.
Problem #3: Smart home hackers often have an easy game
One must not make the mistake of associating smart home products with security. Because it is precisely the inexpensive smart home devices from unknown manufacturers that are particularly susceptible to hacker and other malicious attacks. Although the risk of a hacker attack on your smart home is rather low, it should not be underestimated.
If hackers can hack into your no-name surveillance camera with little effort, they can see what you are doing in your own home. And whoever manages to hack into a product also manages to infiltrate other devices in your smart home and can thus take control.
Manufacturers who require an account for the manufacturer’s own cloud are no less problematic. For many manufacturers, security plays no or only a subordinate role. Account data and passwords, for example, are stored unencrypted in plain text. And since many of us use the same password on different sites, hackers also have access to these accounts. Manufacturers’ own clouds are therefore a popular target for hackers.
Problem #4: Bridges, cable spaghetti and other isolated solutions
Every major smart home system, such as Philips Hue, IKEA or Aqara, has come with its own bridge. Bridges are control centres that are connected to your router and allow you to control the smart home products of the respective manufacturer. This way you only have one IP for all your Philips Hue lamps instead of many individual ones (like with Smart Mi products), but an unsightly tangle of cables accumulates near the router. After all, the bridges also need to be supplied with power.
Matter: The new smart home standard
The industry has also realized that it is time to reform and standardise the confusing smart home market and therefore got together in 2019 and initiated the Matter project. In the meantime, more than 300 companies have joined the Matter consortium (now Connectivity Standards Alliance) and developed a common and licence-free standard. This was finally launched at the end of October 2022 after a few years of delay.
The basic principles of the new Matter standard are interoperability and platform independence. It is not a cloud or another service, nor is it a new manufacturer. Matter is the new transmission standard that is supposed to make the previous different transmission protocols obsolete or unify them.
Think of the smart home world as the real world: Every device currently speaks its own language. Communication between the devices is therefore almost impossible. Matter is the new “language” that all devices in your smart home should speak and, above all, understand. The light bulb could theoretically communicate with the dishwasher and pass on commands and statuses.
How Matter works with smart home devices
In theory, this means that you can control products that are only certified for Google Home or Amazon Alexa with Siri, Apple’s voice assistant. Conversely, it also means that you can, for example, control products that only work with Apple Home with the Google Home app or Amazon Alexa. Matter also aims to solve the problem of technical waste.
Matter: Making the smart home a more connected, comfortable, and helpful place.
Even if the manufacturer of a product goes bankrupt, it can still be controlled, provided it has implemented the Matter standard in the future. There is no obligation for manufacturers to support Matter. But it simply becomes unattractive for manufacturers not to support Matter in the future. This is where you come in: do you prefer to buy a product that works right out of the box and fits seamlessly into your existing system, or a product for which you need adapters first (looking at you, Apple!)?
The fact that all manufacturers are pulling in the same direction with regard to further development also makes your Smart Home more secure. The manufacturers save the expensive development costs for their own technical solutions. And instead of many individual bridges, clouds, apps or IP devices, in future you will only need one so-called border router. This can be an Apple TV or Apple HomePod mini, an Amazon Echo from the 4th generation or a Google Nest. Commands such as “turn on the light” should then work locally and without an internet connection.
Disadvantages of Matter (as of end 2022)
However, it will still be some time before the Matter standard becomes established. While some manufacturers of smart home products such as Eve (so far only compatible with Apple Homekit) or Philips Hue have announced Matter updates, this is not the case for others. Nanoleaf has announced that there will be no Matter support for existing Essentials products because the chips used are too underpowered. New products, however, will get Matter support, according to Nanoleaf. You should inform yourself here if you want to buy a smart home product now.
Matter is not yet perfect either: Matter 1.0 currently supports “only” lamps, smart sockets and light switches, door locks, thermostats as well as smart blinds, door, window and motion sensors and televisions, among other things.
With Matter 2.0, which the CSA has announced for 2024, smart mowing and vacuuming robots, ambient and air sensors, security cameras and white goods will also be supported.
Conclusion: The right home subscriptions for your smart home are available from alao
Do you know when you last looked after your internet or TV subscription? Even without smart home technology, you need fast – and cheap – internet. Simply take out your next home subscription online with alao – we always have the best prices on the market and you can easily take out your subscription online in five minutes. If you have any questions, please contact our support team.
