Tips From The Top

If you’ve been following smart home news, you may have heard the buzz lately about “Matter.”

And if you’re not following smart home news, well, that’s our job as integrators – to follow the industry trends and technology developments, then bring you, our clients, the innovations that make your home lives much more comfortable and secure. As integrators, we take complicated home systems and weave them together seamlessly, then deliver you technology that is easy and intuitive to use.

So we’re happy to share with you what we know about Matter and why it may – or may not – matter to you.

“Matter” is a newly introduced protocol that allows smart devices the ability to speak and work together seamlessly, regardless of manufacturer. In its truest form, it will enable all smart home technology to communicate and work together. It’s a major breakthrough in the field of smart home technology and interoperability.

For a long time, the lack of interoperability has challenged consumers. But the pandemic, and our need to work, study, and stay at home a lot more, upped our need for smart tech in our homes. Even the most tech-resistant among us have needed devices in their homes that will support working and studying while at home. Demand for smart home tech leaped exponentially and has remained high. 

Now, in response to that growing demand, the smart home tech industry is solving the challenge of interoperability and beginning to break down silos so that devices, regardless of manufacturer, can communicate and work together. This process is happening through the  Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), a standards-setting organization for the Internet of Things industry, to create a new connectivity standard. The effort began as the Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP), and in just over two years, its participating companies have grown from a few dozen to more than 200.

At the CES annual convention held earlier this month in Las Vegas, some major tech platforms and tech companies – including Amazon, Google, Apple, and Samsung – announced their adoption of Matter. The hope is that they will lead the way, and one day, every shelf of smart home devices will have a “Matter” logo on them, which means they can communicate with every other Matter-participating device.

At the CES convention, Samantha Fein, vice-president of marketing and business development for Samsung Smartthings, told CNN, “We all speak a common technology language. (This is) an interesting time for competition. The industry is at an inflection point. This rocket ship moment is now.” At the convention, Samsung unveiled the “home hub” – a radical interface that removes the need for smart phones in order to use the smart appliances. Samsung smart refrigerators and televisions, for example, now come with a smart hub right inside.

These innovations, according to Fein, will mean “What used to be the smart home will be just the defacto way we all live and play.”

So what does this mean for you today?

Well, if you’re one of our clients, you may be thinking, “But wait – I have this already, don’t I?” Yes, you do. Because as integrators, our job is to make sure your smart home devices talk to each other. There’s no point in having one system for your lighting and another for security and a third for entertainment. A house with a lot of separate systems isn’t smart at all. It just creates hassles and headaches for consumers. So the smart home platforms we install, like Savant, incorporate all tech systems – including HVAC, audio/video, lighting, security, and more – into one unified, integrated system that you, the homeowner, can control from a single app on your smart phone or tablet.

“Matter” will definitely bring a new era of smart home availability for consumers, but its universal adoption is still a ways off. System security and the integration of security systems are still an issue. But today, you can experience a unified smart home system that is easy and intuitive to use. Call us at Jackson Hole AV. We’d love to discuss the possibilities.