Matter, the new cross-platform open standard that aims to unify the diverse smart home ecosystem, is gaining steam. Following commitments from the likes of Google, Amazon, Apple, and others, Samsung has announced similar plans. At its annual Samsung Developers Conference (SDC) 2021 on Tuesday, the Korean giant committed to compliance with Matter for all its smart home products. It will adopt the new standard across its Galaxy ecosystem, TVs, and other household items through its home automation platform SmartThings.
As Samsung notes, “the connected home has been very fragmented” and diverse. There are numerous players in this space and interoperability has been a major problem. There are products that only work with a certain system. This has led to confusion about whether a particular smart home device will be compatible with an existing ecosystem. Matter aims to solve this.
Formerly called CHIP (Project Connected Home over IP), this ambitious project underwent a rebranding in May. It is a joint effort of some of the biggest names in the tech industry, including Samsung, Google, Amazon, Apple, the Zigbee Alliance, and many more. The project aims to standardize voice assistant support across smart home devices and make devices interoperable.
All Matter-complaint devices that come out in the future will feature a Matter logo. This will help people distinguish devices that are compatible with their smart home ecosystem. As such, they can buy any device without worrying about compatibility.
Samsung is the latest company to announce Matter support for its devices
The Matter standard has yet to go live, but companies are already committing to support it. Several companies operating in the smart home space, including Google, Amazon, Apple, Philips Hue, Nanoleaf, and more have announced that their devices will be compatible with the new protocol. Google has also announced native Android support for the new protocol via Google Play services. Apple will also add Matter support in iOS 15.
Samsung, a founding member of the Matter standard, is now jumping on the bandwagon as well. When the first Matter certification goes live next year, the Korean company will fully integrate it into its SmartThings platform. It has also promised to bring the new protocol to multiple products in 2022.
“We truly believe that Matter is the foundation and future of IoT, and we are thrilled that Samsung SmartThings will be embedding it into so many products accelerating smart home adoption and bringing users more convenient connected home experiences wherever they are,” said Michelle Mindala-Freeman of Samsung.