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Apple Taking On Control 4 With New Matter Push

Apple is days away from announcing their latest results, and some analysts are tipping weak iPhone sales due to manufacturing problems in China. Recently, Apple launched a new MacBook Pro, Mac mini and HomePod in an effort to shore up its current quarter’s revenue, but it’s home automation where Apple is really investing.

Apple will release their latest results on Feb 2, 2023. This is Apple’s biggest quarter of the year, and analysts are projecting sales dipped about one per cent from the year earlier to $122.2 billion. That’s a slight decline from a year earlier, but not a disaster, all things considered.

Q2 revenue is projected to be flat at $97.5 billion.

What ChannelNews is now interested in is what Apple is doing in the home automation and Matter market up against arch-rivals Samsung, Google and Amazon.

At CES 2023 we were told Apple has a renewed interest in home automation, especially in the custom install market where Control 4 has a major share of the premium market, with the big iPhone Company re-engineering their HomeKit offering to work with a multitude of brands, which Apple insiders have told SmartHouse, “Will eliminate the need for a custom install Control 4 system.”

“Brands need to adopt Matter for their home products quickly as the big brands are looking for a major share of the home automation market that in the past have been controlled by proprietary brands such as Control 4,” said an IDC analyst at CES.

“Apple, Google, Amazon and Samsung all want a share of the home automation market and this is a serious issue for brands that are selling custom systems that are expensive to install,” they added.

Apple recently announced a new HomePod with support for Matter, but as we understand it there could be new software and a new iPad that comes with a dock that allows users to control most home automation products, including audio, lighting, security and devices via a new Apple ecosystem that will be significantly cheaper than a Control 4 system.

The central product appears to be a dockable iPad screen that feature a touchscreen and function similar Samsungs SmartThings and Googles Home along with Amazon Alexa with new Apple iOS software coded to pull together third party brands into an Apple Matter eco system.

Magnets would allow it to be mounted to a wall, and HomeKit would give it access to all your smart home products.

What’s surprising is that Samsung who already have SmartThings software, as well as tablets, has not released a dock or wall mountable system so that users can access devices other than via smartphone, a screen on a fridge or via a TV.

According to Matter executives at CES Apple is also fully committed to Matter , the interoperability standard that will allow devices from Apple, Google, Amazon, and Samsung to operate across an open standard network.

Critical to the management of a home is a smart display that can be easily accessed and is large enough to clearly read and manage devices.

Apple is desperately in need of a new product due to slowing sales of iPhones, and with the visionary Steve Jobs driving innovation at Apple the business is now turning to the home and audio to drive new sales.

Last year, Apple rolled out the 5G iPhone SE, Mac Studio and Studio Display during its fiscal second quarter, this year there are no equivalent stream of new products coming in Q2 which is why Apple has cranked up their HomePod offering and is now looking  at new iPad products.

The new HomePod model has essentially the same functionality as the one they launched in 2018 but with the potential take off of Matter the Company needed a voice offering more so a device that plays music so that users could issue commands to the HomeKit network of products.

Apple looking to eliminate the need for proprietary systems such as Control 4.

What’s interesting is whether Apple will bring back the HomePod mini similar to the mini voice devices that Amazon and Google have.

Originally the software on the HomePod device didn’t support many third-party apps or any rival streaming music services, and the speaker didn’t play well with outside smart-home technology which is why Apple appears to have abandoned a proprietary approach and is now backing a Matter open standard approach.

While HomePod is only the beginning for Apple’s renewed smart-home ambitions both Google, Samsung and Amazon are re thinking their approach to management in the home with several new products tipped to be released this year.



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