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Matter Home Automation Still A Problem At IFA 23

Home automation and more so new Matter products were limited at IFA 2024, with the big brands Google and Amazon now offering bridge support for older products because Matter still appears to be a work in progress with industry executives telling ChannelNews that developments are still being progressed especially for camera support.

Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, and Apple Home are some of the major platforms that support Matter, and they have all updated their compatible smart speakers, hubs, and some other devices to be Matter controllers.

At the show there were several new Matter products from the likes of appliance manufacturer Midea, and a slick security cameras from Philips Hue, which the company says will work with Matter when the standard supports cameras.

What was talked about was full platform support for bridges that will allow older home automation products to co exist and work in a Matter connected network.

Also coming is camera compatibility with several security brands including Swann, Arlo and Amazon still developing Matter related devices.

As of this week, owners of older Amazon Alexa products and Samsung SmartThings appliances can be bridged into a Matter network.

The promise that new Matter-powered smart homes wouldn’t be dependent on hubs, as devices is still being debated.

It turns out that’s still technically true, but because the Connectivity Standards Alliance, which manages the standard, hasn’t mandated that every platform implement every part of the Matter spec, consumers aren’t getting some of the best features.

Matter was designed to be a common language for connected devices to communicate locally in your home without relying on a cloud connection.

Developed by Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung, Matter uses Wi-Fi and Thread wireless protocols and currently supports smart sensors, smart lighting, smart plugs and switches, smart thermostats, connected locks, and media devices including TVs.

In Australia one of the most popular home automation products is Philips Hue and they on the Matter platform, which means the bridges are finally being built.

The popular Philips Hue smart lighting ecosystem is adding support for Matter via a firmware update to its bridge starting this month.

Hue’s existing lighting products work in Matter through the bridge, and if Hue had added Matter support last month, it would have only worked with Google Home and Apple Home through Matter.

As of this week, Amazon and Samsung have finally added support for bridging.

“We recently completed rolling out support for Matter hubs and bridges,” Amazon spokesperson Connor Rice told the Verge “Now, customers can connect Matter-enabled hubs and bridges, like the Philips Hue Bridge, to Alexa through any Matter-enabled Echo device.” Samsung has also confirmed that they are rolling out a firmware update to its SmartThings hubs which ironically are not available in Australia with local management telling ChannelNews that the hubs are built into a TV and their appliances eliminating the need for a separate hub similar to what is being sold in the USA.

However, no Matter platform — such as Apple Home, Home Assistant, Amazon Alexa, or Google Home — currently supports binding. Eve’s Tim Böth told me they can only get this feature to work in Apple HomeKit using its Eve app, not the Apple Home app. This means the function is only available to Apple Home users using Eve’s iOS app, which is not the promised cross-platform functionality Matter should bring.

While we won’t see camera support this year, mid-2024 could be a possibility

Verge claims that We’ve only just got bridging on all the platforms, so it’s not surprising that binding — a more complicated advanced feature — hasn’t been priority No. 1 for the engineers.

But it’s one of those features that will make the smart home “just work.”

Imagine buying a motion sensor and a pack of light bulbs, plugging them in, and they work together right out of the box — even without an internet connection! That’s what binding would bring.

The minute this happens it’s expected that there will be an explosion in new home automation gear.

This included the new Philips Hue Secure line of cameras and Aqara’s new entry-level Camera E1.

Jasper Vervoort of Signify (owners of Hue) and Filipp Shved of Aqara both claimed that their new cameras would support Matter, and both seemed confident that would be sooner rather than later, although neither offered an exact timeline.

The Connectivity Standards Alliance has made it clear that cameras are coming to Matter with mid-2024 tipped as a launch date.

Right now, devices still don’t work together seamlessly — not because the technology doesn’t work but because some platforms and companies are hesitating or hedging their bets or making the investment.



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