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Matter 1.3 arrives with new device type and features
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The latest Matter spec brings a number of improvements to the smart
home standard founded by Apple, Google, Amazon, and Samsung. Released
this week by the Connectivity Standards Alliance, Matter 1.3 brings
support for more appliances, including ovens and cooktops, adds energy
and water management, and introduces new features for Matter's
universal casting protocol that could be a competitor to AirPlay and
Google Cast.
This is all great progress, but as none of the major platforms have
added support for Matter 1.2 yet, who knows when they'll get around to
supporting 1.3? But I digress. First, let's dig into what's new.
The 1.3 update adds microwave ovens, ovens, electric cooktops,
extractor hoods, and electric dryers, which join washing machines and
a slew of appliances added to Matter 1.2 last year. The spec also
brings new energy and water management features that make EV chargers,
water leak sensors, freeze detectors, rain sensors, and water valves
compatible with the standard (see sidebar).
With the addition of these new device types, Matter now supports most
of your home's major appliances, along with gadgets like smart locks,
lights, shades, thermostats, and a variety of other smart home
sensors. The CSA's Chris LaPré tells _The Verge_ that heat pumps and
water heaters are coming in the next release, slated for the fall, and
that they are working on solar panel integration.
What is the point of a smart home industry collaboration when no one
can actually use it?
We're still waiting for popular devices like cameras and video
doorbells to be part of Matter. But overall, the smart home standard
has come a long way in fulfilling its promise of providing a way for
every smart device to work in your home locally over an interoperable
communication protocol, even if the implementation still has some bugs
to work out.
While there are plenty of smart devices in the above categories that
may work with one or more smart home platforms today, you often need
to use products from one manufacturer or one ecosystem to get the most
functionality. For example, Moen's Flo water valve shutoff device only
works with Moen's water leak sensors. In theory, with Matter, these
types of devices will work with any other Matter device, regardless of
who made them and in any Matter-supported ecosystem.
_Appliance manufacturer Midea is one of the few that has added support
for Matter 1.2 and 1.3 to its products, including the new Midea X23
TastePro combination microwave oven, a dishwasher, and a window AC
unit._ Image: Midea
But while Matter now supports more device types and features, there
are still two big problems. First, there are hardly any 1.2 devices
available to buy, let alone 1.3. Second, none of the major platforms
have added support for Matter 1.2 yet. Who knows when they'll get
around to 1.3? What is the point of a smart home industry
collaboration when no one can actually use it?
We have reached the chicken-and-egg stage of a new protocol. If the
platforms don't support the new device types, manufacturers are less
likely to spend resources supporting them (on top of all the other
support they need to add to their products to work with Alexa or
Google Home or Apple Home, if they can't do it through Matter). But if
there are no devices, then why should the platforms bother putting
time, effort, and resources into supporting the new device types?
We're in developer conference season, so we may see some movement at
Google I/O next week or Apple's WWDC in June. But even if Apple
announced full support of Matter 1.2 _and_ 1.3, we'll still likely
have to wait at least six months for it to arrive, presumably with iOS
18.
## New Matter device types and their capabilities
Matter 1.2 introduced home appliances to the standard, and 1.3 rounds
that out with support for nearly all major appliances, plus additional
sensors and EV chargers. Here's a look at what each device type will
be capable of.
* **Microwave ovens:** Control the cooking time, power level, mode,
* **Ovens:** Control its mode (standard, convection bake, roast, st
* **Cooktops:** Remote access and control of electric cooktops (the
* **Laundry dryers:** Set the dryer mode and the target temperature
* **Extractor hoods:** Control the light and fan and send alerts wh
* **Electric vehicle supply equipment:** Manually start or stop cha
* **Water leak detectors:** Can be used as a trigger to close a wat
* **Freeze detectors:** Send alerts and trigger automations.
* **Rain sensors:** Trigger automations such as closing a skylight
* **Water valves** : Can be automatically shut off based on duratio
Amazon has told me that it's working on adding support, but it's doing
so slowly, and while Samsung's SmartThings has been the most proactive
of the big four, it still hasn't said if it will allow Samsung
appliances to be part of Matter, which seems like a big slap in the
face to the whole idea of an open, interoperable standard.
One thing that might move matters along is support for energy
management. With Matter 1.3, any Matter device will be able "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."
While individual devices can't do much with this information, a smart
home ecosystem or energy management app can tap into this data and
help you manage energy use in your home automatically, which is huge.
Some platforms, including Home Assistant and Samsung SmartThings,
already offer robust energy management platforms. With Matter now
supporting large home appliances and energy management, the potential
for more devices to feed into those platforms will grow. Platforms
like Apple Home, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa will have to start
playing catch-up if they want to capture the rapidly growing market of
homeowners who are turning to the connected home to help reduce their
energy use.
Key to the energy management spec is the introduction of support for
EV charging. Electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) is a new device
type in Matter 1.3, adding the capability to control how you charge
your EV, including things like telling the car to charge with at least
80 miles by 7:30AM tomorrow using the cheapest / greenest energy.
Again, there are platforms and apps that can do this, but they're
mostly proprietary or limited to partnerships developed by companies.
The idea of being able to manage charging your EV in your Apple Home
or Google Home app along with your other connected appliances is a
compelling one.
## Matter casting gets some big improvements, but it's still Amazon-
only
With Matter 1.3, Matter casting is getting some upgrades, including
the ability to send push messages to any screen. This could mean
getting a notification on your TV when your laundry is done or an
alert on your smart display when the robot vacuum is trapped under the
couch.
Matter casting, which allows you to cast content to apps on TVs and
displays directly from a supported app on a smartphone, has been built
into Matter since day one. But so far, only Amazon has done anything
with it, adding support for casting Prime Video content from a
smartphone to an Echo Show 15 smart display earlier this year. Chris
DeCenzo, principal software development engineer at Amazon Lab126 and
Amazon's lead on Matter casting, tells me the team is currently
rolling out Matter casting support to its Fire TV devices.
Other new features coming to Matter casting with 1.3 include the
option for apps to have multiple clients connected to them at once and
offer a different experience for each one. According to DeCenzo, this
could allow developers to enable new experiences, such as multiplayer
gaming with smartphones.
This sounds similar to the experience Apple offers today, where you
can have several people playing the same Apple Arcade game using
iPhones and an Apple TV. But where Apple's is a closed ecosystem,
Matter casting is an open protocol that can work with any phone,
tablet, or TV that supports Matter. But again, until more platforms
support it, there's less incentive for developers to put time and
resources into creating those new experiences. And Apple and Google
already have their own proprietary casting systems.
With 1.3, Matter is making some big moves. Energy management, in
particular, brings significant value to the standard. Saving money and
managing energy use is a good answer to the question of why I need
connected devices in my home and it's something that's been hard
and/or expensive to do with current smart home offerings. Matter could
mean more and cheaper options. But until the companies that started
this smart home standard actually step up and properly support it,
it's hard to see why anyone else should.
### What is Matter?
Matter is a new smart home interoperability standard designed to
provide a common language for connected devices to communicate locally
in your home without relying on a cloud connection. It is built to be
secure and private, easy to set up, and widely compatible.
Developed by Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung (and others), Matter
is an open-sourced, IP-based connectivity software layer for smart
home devices. It works over Wi-Fi, ethernet, and the low-power mesh
networking protocol Thread and currently supports over 30 device
types. These include lighting, thermostats, locks, refrigerators,
dishwashers, dryers, ovens, smoke alarms, air quality monitors, EV
chargers, and more.
A smart home gadget with the Matter logo can be set up and used with
any Matter-compatible ecosystem via a Matter controller and controlled
by them simultaneously, a feature called multi-admin.
Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, and Apple Home are
some major smart home platforms supporting Matter, along with hundreds
of device manufacturers.
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