For many of us in tech, the New Year doesn’t really start until mid-January, after we’ve been to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). As one of the largest, most influential tech events in the consumer space, CES is a great way to gauge trends, gather insights and get motivated for the coming year.
As one might expect, smart home was a prominent part of the event. What’s more, this was the first time that attendees could interact with real-world products equipped with Matter, the widely anticipated interoperability standard for Smart Home.
Version 1.0 of the Matter standard, which was made public by the Connectivity Standards Alliance in 2022, now includes seven device types ready for certification and will be expanded to include more categories within the next year. As a result, companies have moved quickly to develop and introduce products that are either already Matter certified or about to be.
Why is Matter getting so much attention? Because it brings to Smart Home something that’s been missing since the beginning – hassle-free interoperability. Matter makes it possible for devices from different manufacturers to connect securely and effortlessly from the get-go and work across smart home platforms or ecosystems such as Amazon, Apple, Google and Samsung SmartThings. By making it easier to set up, protect, expand and maintain a home network, Matter will broaden the appeal of Smart Home and will help transition Smart Home from a niche market, mostly driven by tech enthusiasts, into the mainstream, where consumers with little to no technical expertise can enjoy the advantages of a secure, connected home environment.
In addition to the Matter-certified devices and controllers that were on display at CES, there were a number of demos that let attendees experience what Matter can do for Smart Home. At the NXP booth, for example, we had a very cool setup that demonstrated a virtual smart home with Matter as an enabler of secure interoperability across end nodes, routing devices, Matter Controllers and Thread Border Routers with multiple options for control – 3rd party ecosystems (Google Nest Hub, Apple HomePod Mini), a development board-based Matter Controller and Thread Border Router and another development board-based Matter Controller using local voice control.
We also had a special interactive discussion about Matter, broadcast live from CES, with Rafael Sotomayor, NXP’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of Secure Connected Edge, and Bill Curtis, an analyst specializing in Industrial IoT and IoT technology at Moor Insights and Strategy.
We were especially pleased to have Bill as part of the conversation at CES because, as an outside analyst, he brings a unique perspective on Matter. Industry analysts are, by nature, born skeptics, which means they ask the hard questions – and they tend to question everything. As independent thinkers and complete subject-matter experts, analysts bring valuable insights into end users, the ecosystem, and yes, even the competition. Bill is no exception.
Move to the autonomous home. Learn more about how NXP is enabling Matter.
Bill has been following Matter closely since 2019, when official work first began on the standard, and he’s been impressed by the level of collaboration, common sense and maturity shown by those involved in the project (including NXP). He believes Matter is more than an incremental development for connectivity in the home, it’s a fundamental change in approach. Calling Matter a “paradigm shift for Smart Home,” Bill thinks Matter will not only level the playing field for the Smart Home value chain, it will lay the foundation for the autonomous home.
As a result of what he describes as the “Matter Effect,” smart homes will become much, much smarter. Off-the-shelf platforms, built using Matter standards for quick product certification, will let developers focus on value-added innovation, instead of system-level engineering, and will jumpstart creativity. At the same time, secure interoperability, regardless of device type, will make it possible to control more than individual devices and subsystems, so we can orchestrate the whole home.
While he’s been tracking Matter’s evolution as a standard, Bill has also been watching how the industry is shaping up to support the development of Matter devices. When he reviewed NXP’s Matter-enabled portfolio, he found that we have “all the right ingredients,” citing the fact that we not only helped define the Matter security specification, but we also are “one of the first semiconductor companies to offer Matter-certified platforms with all the silicon, software, reference designs and services customers need to build and deploy secure products.”
I think what Bill has picked up on is NXP’s long-standing commitment to open standards and our determination to make it easier for developers to bring certified products to market. We agree with Bill when he says that developers need to focus on adding value by focusing on application development instead of managing the complex issues of interoperability. That’s why we offer a full range of options for every level of performance in every Matter device category, and it’s why we provide a complete set of security technologies, from pre-injected credentials in silicon to full-on provisioning via EdgeLock 2GO services.
Bill’s recently published white paper, titled “Matter – Making Smart Homes Smarter” is available for download. It’s a deep dive into Matter and why it lays the foundation for the autonomous home. It explains why Matter is a standard with staying power, recommends next steps for device developers and even includes a set of FAQs for consumers and suppliers.
We expect to continue working closely with Bill in the coming year so expect to hear much more about Matter.
Mike is the global marketing communications manager for NXP’s wireless connectivity portfolio. In this role, he is responsible for communicating and driving the company’s wireless technology story and the way NXP is reimagining how we connect and interact with our smarter world.
