Amazon is doubling down on its commitment to support Matter, an upcoming open and unified standard for smart home devices. In a blog post on Wednesday, the company announced that it will support Matter over Thread in its vast lineup of Echo and Eero devices.
The retail giant had earlier this summer said that it will upgrade most of its Echo devices to support the new protocol. Excluding the first-gen Echo, first-gen Echo Dot, and Echo Tap, every other Echo and Echo Dot device, as well as every Echo Studio, Echo Flex, Echo Plus, and Echo Show will get Matter support. It is now bringing its Eero branded Wi-Fi routers into the fold as well. All Eero Pro, Eero Beacon, Eero Pro 6, and Eero 6 devices will gain support for the new standard.
Amazon says it is further expanding its commitment to Matter and “reinforcing our smart home philosophy of flexibility, privacy, collaboration, and interoperability.”
The latest announcement also reveals that Echo (4th Gen) devices will pick up Matter over Thread support first. Amazon will roll out the support to the devices “in time” for the first Matter SDK release next year. Other compatible Echo devices will “follow later.”
Additionally, Amazon has announced that it is joining the Thread Group Board of Directors. The company has been a member of the group for five years. “As a board member, we are excited to provide thought leadership and advocacy for Thread as a standard” and “help shape the future of this key Matter protocol,” Amazon said.
Amazon doubles down on its Matter commitment
Formerly called Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP), Matter is a new open-sourced smart home protocol that has won the backing of over a hundred tech companies. We have some big names like Apple, Google, Samsung, the Zigbee Alliance, and, of course, Amazon backing it.
The primary goal of this project is to unify the diverse smart home ecosystem. This will allow more devices to operate with each other. Amazon says more than 140,000 smart home products are compatible with Alexa. Additionally, more than 200 million smart home devices are connected to Alexa over Wi-Fi, Zigbee, and BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy).
With Matter, customers can use Alexa with as many smart home devices as they want. The new standard also allows manufacturers to build devices with their preferred protocols without worrying about interoperability.
Numerous big and small companies operating in the smart home space have announced their support for the new protocol. Google and Apple have even committed to supporting Matter on their respective mobile platforms, i.e. Android and iOS. The first Matter certifications are expected to arrive next year.