Matter over Thread details revealed for Eero and Echo devices
Amazon has confirmed it will offer Matter over Thread support in its Echo smart speakers and displays, as well as its Eero home networking products.
Matter is an open source, royalty free connectivity standard, intended to remove the headaches involved in the world of smart gadgets. They might use a bunch of different ways to talk to each other, and Matter helps flattens that out.
Thread is a wireless networking protocol, though which Matter can operate. Add Thread to Matter and you get a way for, in theory, all smart home gear to communicate.
Explainer: What is Matter for the smart home
It’s good news for us consumers, and the likes of Google, Apple and Samsung are already signed up to use Matter in the future.
If this roll-out goes as planned, you may not need to think about whether smart assistant system A supports smart home gadget B ever again. And then most of us can go about forgetting Matter is even a thing. Fingers crossed.
Amazon says the Echo 4th-gen will be the first of its Echo devices to get Matter support, alongside its Eero Wi-Fi systems.
Explainer: What is Thread
Earlier this year Amazon announced its intention to bring the standard to pretty much every Echo device bar the first-generation Echo, Echo Dot and the largely forgotten Amazon Tap.
Amazon also name-checked Yale, Wemo, Schlage, Sengled, Netatmo, Eve, Nanoleaf, Tuya, eWeLink and Leedarson as companies with which it is currently working on Matter over Thread devices.
Why Matter matters
Matter is still a work-in-progress. Amazon says it plans to bring Matter support to the Echo 4th-gen in time for its SDK release in 2022. An SDK is a software development kit, the set of tools manufacturers will use to make their products support the standard.
Matter is the brand name for Project CHIP, and the name will appear on all compatible smart home devices when it goes live next year.
The idea is it will be easier for consumers to identify devices that will work within their smart home ecosystem; whether that be Alexa, HomeKit, Google’s Assistant, SmartThings, or any others who join the party.
For example, a HomeKit only brand such as Eve would never be compatible with SmartThings… but Matter will make that possible.
We are going to start seeing smart home devices that use Matter in 2022.
