Inside the room where the smart home industry is still betting on Matter

Four years ago, overlooking a canal in Amsterdam, the smart home industry collectively launched Matter , the one interoperability standard to rule them all. Heralded as the solution to the industry’s struggles, Matter was built on open standards and existing technologies and is the result of years of collaboration between traditional rivals, including Apple, Google, Amazon, and Samsung. Matter promised an end to walled gardens and ecosystem lock-in. It promised to make a smart home device, like a lock, lightbulb, or sensor, easy to buy and set up. It promised you could choose any brand, use any platform, no expertise required — it would just work . “Matter long-term won’t be successful until everybody can use it at parity. That’s the goal. And all the companies know that.” — Tobin Richardson, CSA It didn’t. Today, Matter is still not there. Adding devices to your smart home is still cumbersome and finicky ; sharing them across ecosystems can be unreliable , and some features users expect aren’t part of Matter and still require the manufacturer’s app . But, based on what I saw at the Unify conference in Austin, Texas , last week, Matter is much closer to its promise of a simple, reliable, interoperable smart home. Following a rocky launch and years of broken promises , the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) designated 2025 as the year to fix Matter — and I have seen significant improvements. …