Matter support for home appliances is on the way, through the latest version of the smart home connectivity standard backed by Apple and more than 600 other companies.
Previous versions of Matter have been limited to smaller smart home devices, like lights, door locks, blinds, and security sensors – while Matter 1.2 will add support for household appliances, robot cleaners, and more …
What’s the Matter?
Matter is effectively a cross-company version of HomeKit. It’s a single standard that enables any compatible smart home device to be controlled by Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, Zigbee, and more.
The big advantage is that while only a limited number of companies chose to support HomeKit, the broader market for Matter devices means that almost everyone will support it. For Apple users, this is essentially a way to bring HomeKit compatibility to a much wider range of devices – so far, it’s backed by some 675 companies.
Matter support coming to home appliances
The latest version, Matter 1.2, has just been made available to members of the Connectivity Standards Alliance (aka the industry group behind Matter) so that they can start adding support to nine new product categories.
- Refrigerators – Beyond basic temperature control and monitoring, this device type is also applicable to other related devices like deep freezers and even wine and kimchi fridges.
- Room Air Conditioners – While HVAC and thermostats were already part of Matter 1.0, stand alone Room Air Conditioners with temperature and fan mode control are now supported.
- Dishwashers – Basic functionality is included, like remote start and progress notifications. Dishwasher alarms are also supported, covering operational errors such as water supply and drain, temperature, and door lock errors.
- Laundry Washers – Progress notifications, such as cycle completion, can be sent via Matter. Dryers will be supported in a future Matter release.
- Robotic Vacuums – Beyond the basic features like remote start and progress notifications, there is support for key features like cleaning modes (dry vacuum vs. wet mopping) and additional status details (brush status, error reporting, charging status).
- Smoke & Carbon Monoxide Alarms – These alarms will support notifications and audio and visual alarm signaling. Additionally, there is support for alerts about battery status and end-of-life notifications. These alarms also support self-testing. Carbon monoxide alarms support concentration sensing, as an additional data point.
- Air Quality Sensors – Supported sensors can capture and report on: PM1, PM 2.5, PM 10, CO2, NO2, VOC, CO, Ozone, Radon, and Formaldehyde. Furthermore, the addition of the Air Quality Cluster enables Matter devices to provide AQI information based on the device’s location.
- Air Purifiers – Purifiers utilize the Air Quality Sensor device type to provide sensing information and also include functionality from other device types like Fans (required) and Thermostats (optional). Air purifiers also include consumable resource monitoring, enabling notifications on filter status (both HEPA and activated carbon filters are supported in 1.2).
- Fans – Matter 1.2 includes support for fans as a separate, certifiable device type. Fans now support movements like rock/oscillation and new modes like natural wind and sleep wind. Additional enhancements include the ability to change the airflow direction (forward and reverse) and step commands to change the speed of airflow.
The alliance says that Matter 1.2 also improves support and functionality for existing product categories. For example, supported smart locks now include the combined latch and bolt design common in Europe, while devices can now “broadcast” their color and finish so that products can be more accurately represented in apps.
We should start seeing new Matter-enabled products coming to market across the rest of the year, as well as more existing smart home devices getting over-the-air updates to add Matter support.
Photo: Sidekix Media/Unsplash
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