Matter, the open source IP-based protocol, was created to be a unifying standard that will help people create a reliable and secure IoT ecosystem in a smart home. It is also designed to help smart home device manufacturers by allowing them to build products based on a single protocol instead of products for each smart home ecosystem including Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, and others.
The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) has announced the release of version 1.3 of the Matter protocol specification. According to the CSA, this new release adds support for:
- Energy Management — To help users understand and manage their energy use, save money, and reduce their carbon footprint, Matter 1.3 introduces new energy reporting capabilities. This enables any device type to include the ability to report actual and estimated measurements, including instantaneous power, voltage, current, and others, in real-time, as well as its energy consumption or generation over time.
- Electric Vehicle Charging — Matter 1.3’s energy features also enable new energy-centric devices, the first of which is Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE). This enables EV charging equipment manufacturers to present a consumer-friendly way to control how and when they charge their vehicles. It features the ability to manually start or stop charging, adjust the charging rate, or specify how many miles of range to be added by a set departure time, leaving the charging station to automatically optimize the charging to happen at the cheapest and lowest carbon times.
- Water Management — Support for leak and freeze detectors, rain sensors, and controllable water valves provide homeowners with enhanced monitoring, management, and protection over water in and around their homes.”
In addition, version 1.3 adds support for new device types including:
- Microwave Ovens
- Ovens
- Cooktops
- Vent Hoods
- Laundry Dryers
Finally, version 1.3 adds enhanced support for media players and TVs, scenes where commands for multiple devices can be triggered by a single command, and command batching where multiple commands can be combined into a single message.
Implementation
I tested a number of AiDot’s Matter-compatible products, including the AiDot P200 Pro, the world’s first Mater compatible air cleaner (You can find that article here). Support for air cleaners was recently included in version 1.2 of Matter protocol specification. As I discovered, there is a lag between when a device is included in the specification and when Apple, Amazon, Google, and SmartThings will add support for it into their ecosystems.
Another interesting aspect of the implementation of Matter by various IoT device manufacturers is that some are building support for the Matter protocol directly into their products while others are adding a Matter bridge product to their lineups that bridges between the Matter protocol and the company’s existing API to communicate with their products.
At first, I believed that these Matter bridges were a way for a company to quickly add Matter support to their existing products and that, over time, the bridge would go away as Matter support was added to individual products. However, I’m now hearing that this may not be the case.
It turns out that the process of adding Matter protocol support to an existing product, including going through the certification process, can be quite expensive for a device manufacturer. For companies that innovate and add new features to a product on an ongoing basis, the certification process needs to be repeated with each product update, which adds to the expense.
In addition, the Matter protocol, in its current form, tends to dumb down a product because unique features that a company may have implemented to differentiate their products from competitors may not be supported in the protocol.
A Matter bridge solves these issues. For example, a Matter bridge only has to be certified once, even if the company’s other products that work through the bridge go through numerous updates. This can reduce the expense of implementing Matter. Also, a company can offer unique and innovative features that are only available through a product’s existing API even though only basic control features are available through the Matter bridge. This allows a company to continue to offer unique features that differentiate their products from competitors.
So, don’t be surprised by companies offering Matter bridges instead of building Matter protocol support directly into their products.
Conclusions
The Matter protocol continues to advance. Version 1.3 includes a number of new features including energy management and support for new devices. How IoT device manufacturer’s implement the protocol is also evolving. Matter bridges are becoming an important tool for manufacturers to implement the protocol in a cost-effective way.
