What you need to know
- Matter, the standard that aims to make all smart home devices and platforms interoperable, has a new update.
- The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) today announced the new Matter 1.3 update, adding support for additional device types.
- New in this version is support for additional household appliances such as stoves and dryers as well as chargers for electric vehicles.
Matter aims high and wants to ensure that all types of smart home devices and ecosystems work well together. Matter’s adoption has been slow, but the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), which develops the standard, continues to expand its reach. In a blog post on Wednesday, May 8, the CSA released the next version of Matter, known as Matter 1.3. The update adds support for new types of devices, such as home appliances and electric vehicle chargers.
The biggest part of Matter 1.3 is the inclusion of new power management features. Electric vehicle chargers will be the first type of device to benefit from Matter 1.3’s new energy management system, but it will likely apply to other devices in the future. The CSA says Matter 1.3 enables supported accessories to “report actual and estimated measurements, including instantaneous power, voltage, current, and others, in real time, as well as energy consumption or production over time.”
In practice, this will help users charge more efficiently and cost-effectively. High energy products such as electric vehicles can have a large impact on their owner’s electricity bill when charged during peak demand periods. For this reason, scheduling electric vehicle charging at times when energy consumption is typically low can be an excellent cost-saving measure.
With Matter 1.3, supported electric vehicle chargers can be controlled via the Internet, for example to start or stop a charging process manually. Other uses include adjusting the charging rate for electric vehicles and “specifying how many miles of range to add up to a specified departure time.”
Aside from energy management, Matter 1.3 also offers support for water management devices, according to CSA. These include “leak and frost detectors, rain sensors and controllable water valves”.
Matter 1.3 opens the door to the release of more smart home devices with Matter support and builds on the existing support for washing machines added with Matter 1.2. Five new devices are supported: microwaves, ovens, hobs, extractor hoods and tumble dryers.
Finally, the latest version improves integration between Matter-equipped TVs and other devices. For example, one day you might receive a push notification on your TV that your laundry has finished drying.
This all requires widespread acceptance of the matter to make a meaningful difference, and that is supposedly coming. The problem with Matter so far is the speed at which it is being added to new products and existing software platforms. This still applies to Matter 1.3 as the release only covers the new specification. There are no new products ready for release with Matter 1.3, and it will take time for manufacturers to ship home appliances and electric vehicle chargers with Matter support.
“Looking ahead to the fall release and beyond, we expect support for improvements that benefit all users and devices, including new device categories, and that enable users to launch, expand and build their secure smart home with a smart home-focused network infrastructure to wait,” said the CSA.