The Matter ecosystem has been the talk of the town for the last few days. Now, Google has also joined the bandwagon by launching support for the unified smart home platform that allows interoperability between ecosystems and allows single platforms to borrow support of an incompatible device. Google has integrated support for the platform on multiple devices, including Nest Mini, Nest Hub Max, Google Home Mini, Nest WiFi Pro, Nest Hub (first and second generation), and Google Home.
It clearly means that if you have any of the mentioned devices, then you can make it act as a medium to connect between the internet and your home’s other thread-compatible gadgets. Google has put a stamp on the fact that a few more Nest devices will be updated by 2023, including Nest Thermostat (2020) and Nest WiFi.
Not only this, but Android devices will also extend support for Matter devices and connect with Fast Pair to quickly add a new device to your home. By next year, Google will bring the same support for iOS and Google Home applications. This will allow you to control any device once it is connected to a Matter-compatible application.
How does matter work?
Matter utilizes WiFi and the ‘Thread’ Protocol to establish communication with smart home devices so that the smart home devices themselves can become nodes in a mesh network at home. Considering that, it can be deduced that the commands to smart home devices are not supposed to bounce to a cloud-based system reducing dependency on cloud services and minimizing latency between command and reaction. The brand of your Thread border router doesn’t matter as Thread 1.3.0 will generalize the function across all the brands, so the users will not be supposed to have multiple Thread networks running in their homes.
What else?
Amazon has already confirmed that 30 of its Echo devices are all set to receive Matter and Thread compatibility. In addition, Apple has also rolled out support for Matter and Thread on its HomePod Mini (2nd Gen) and the Apple TV 4K (2nd Gen).
