Just on the latest Echo for now, but it's a start
The Matter rollout has been a little bit turbulent but there are clear skies on the horizon following the news that Amazon has, finally, added Thread to the Matter mix, as well as making the Alexa iOS app work with Matter.
Matter-over-Thread, a key ingredient for the new smart home ecosystem, was missing from Amazon’s initial Matter offering but is now available to owners of the 4th-generation Echo smart speaker.
The 4th-gen Amazon Echo now doubles up as both a Matter controller and a Thread border router but is still the only Echo device to do so.
Plus, Thread will be enabled in existing smart home devices such as smart speakers and hubs, with some of these device types even able to act as Thread border routers.
Guide: Best Matter smart home devices
Older Echo speakers and the likes of the Echo Dot, Echo Show and Echo Studio all just remain Matter smart home controllers.
Technically, you could still get a Thread network working via one of these non-Thread Echo speakers but you’d have to use an additional Thread border router such as an Eero mesh router.
It’s not exactly the clear waters we were expecting when the Matter smart home standard; the idea was that if a smart home device had the ‘Works with Matter’ sticker on the box then it would just work, no matter what smart home platform your home was running on.
And Amazon has also further muddied those waters somewhat by updating the Works with Alexa (WWA) certification requirements for Matter devices.
That’s more something for devs to worry about though but could still mean yet another ‘Works with’ sticker on a device box to confuse consumers.
What won’t be confusing (hopefully) is Frustration-Free Setup (FFS) is also on offer for Matter devices that meet Amazon’s criteria, simplifying the device setup experience for Alexa users.
Eve is one of the first brands out of the blocks to take advantage of this. It has announced that it will add FFS to all of its Matter-enabled devices, starting with Eve Energy, Eve Motion and Eve Door & Window this month.
