A new testing phase pushes the public launch back further
The Connectivity Standards Alliance have revealed another updated timeline for the Matter smart home standard and, unfortunately, we’re not going to be seeing any Matter-branded smart home devices until at least the fall.
The push back of the public launch is as of a result of a further expansion of the testing period and it’s the second big delay for the smart home standard.
Back in April last year (when Matter was still called Project CHIP and it was the Zigbee Alliance in charge) it was announced that brands participating in the Project will be able to get smart home devices certified for the standard by late 2021.
Explainer: What is Matter for the smart home
However, it became clear that wasn’t on the cards as, in August 2021, it was revealed that we’d have to wait until 2022 for the first wave of Matter smart home devices.
And now we know it won’t be until much later this year.
“To further improve code quality and stability and accommodate the breadth of Matter devices and platforms, we’re extending our testing and validation events,” read a statement on the Matter blog.
“While this will have the effect of pushing the public launch of Matter 1.0 by a few months, we’ll be launching with a larger pipeline of Matter-enabled devices, and a robust supply chain of development platforms for more devices to come.
“Even with this, there’s a lot of good news and reason to be confident in our plans to get Matter done and done right.
“This spring, we’ll finish our regular test events, and the SDK will be feature complete as planned. The test harness and test tools will also be feature complete; and Version 0.9 of the Matter specification will be made available to all Alliance members at mid-year.
“The SVE will follow and, once complete and validated, we will see the launch of Matter 1.0 in the fall.”
It’s a shame as it was only a couple of weeks back that Gimmy Chu, CEO of Nanoleaf – a major player in the early days of Matter – told us he was hopeful of a mid-2022 launch for Matter.
“The middle of this year is when it’s scheduled to be finalized, so I think it’s pretty realistic that it’s going to launch this year,” Chu told us when we caught up with.
The delay, while somewhat inevitable in such an ambitious project (there is participation from more than 240 companies), it’s still a blow to the market who are awaiting the launch with open arms.
In recent months we’ve spoken to the likes of ADT and Z-Wave about their enthusiasm for Matter and what it can do for the evolution of the smart home.
There are some pretty big names involved in the project – the likes of Apple, Google and Amazon joined the (then-named) Zigbee Alliance for the new protocol plan back in 2019, which is based around a shared belief that smart home devices should be secure, reliable, and seamless to use.
Matter involves a who’s who in the smart home world, with the likes of Ikea, Legrand, Resideo, Samsung SmartThings, Schneider Electric, Signify, Silicon Labs, Somfy, and Wulian all involved.
Initially Matter will be built around three wireless technologies: Thread, Bluetooth LE and Wi-Fi.
Explainer: What is Thread
Thread is the major player here though in terms of device communication – especially for the initial launch phase; Bluetooth is essentially used for initial setups where needed and Wi-Fi is only required for high-bandwidth situations.
Read our comprehensive guide to the Matter smart home to find out more.
