The Connected Standards Alliance (CSA) has maintained its pace of updating the Matter standard approximately every six months, and recently released the latest version, Matter 1.3. This new standard, through a series of improvements, aims to enhance device interoperability, expand supported device categories, and increase the safety of the entire smart home ecosystem.
Matter 1.3 updates have added features such as microwaves ovens, electric stoves, range hoods, and electric dryers. These features complement those of washing machines and numerous other appliances introduced last year in Matter 1.2. The specification also brings new functionalities for energy and water management, making EV chargers, leak sensors, somke detectors, water sensors, and water valves compatible with the standard.
With these new types of devices added, Matter now supports most major home appliances as well as smaller gadgets like smart locks, lights, curtains, thermostats, and various other smart home sensors. According to a CSA staff, heat pumps and water heaters will be launched in the next release this fall, and efforts are underway to integrate solar panels.
Matter 1.3 Core Updates:
Expanded Device Compatibility:
- Advanced Appliance Controls: Matter 1.3 further integrates smart technology into home appliances and smart home devices. It allows users to manage kitchen devices, for instance, ovens, which can now report their states, such as pre-heating or cooling, and respond to commands to initiate specific cooking functions. Similarly, stoves can also be remotely controlled, adjusting settings like temperature.
- Laundry Room Enhancements: For laundry appliances, Matter 1.3 supports new functions for dryers, allowing users to change drying modes and receive notifications when clothes are dry. Support for washing machines was introduced in a previous version (Matter 1.2).
Energy Management:
- Enhanced Energy Features: This update provides detailed energy reporting for smart home devices, including electricity consumption, generation details, and voltage metrics. Matter 1.3 also extends these capabilities to new energy car (EV), enabling control of charging levels based on set departure times or manual deactivation.
- Pipeline Monitoring: New functionalities allow monitoring of the home’s plumbing system, sending notifications when there are issues such as leaks or frozen pipes.
Improved User Experience:
- Scene Support: Matter 1.3 introduces support for creating “scenes” — preset settings that can adjust various aspects of the home environment with a single command, like dimming lights or changing colors.
- Streamlined Command Execution: This update helps minimize the latency in executing successive commands for smart devices (often referred to as the “popcorn effect”), ensuring smoother interactions.
General Enhancements:
- Notifications and Bug Fixes: The new version allows for notifications from other smart devices to appear directly on smart TVs and includes several bug fixes to enhance the system’s overall stability and performance.
Notably, in Matter 1.3, Mattercasting has been upgraded to include the ability to send push messages to any screen, potentially meaning that notifications could appear on TV screens when laundry is done or alerts could be on smart displays when a robot vacuum gets stuck under a sofa.
Mattercast allows content to be cast to TV applications, and viewable directly from supported apps on smartphones. It’s been built into Matter from day one but so far, only Amazon has done something with it.
In summary, Matter’s commitment is to achieve interconnectivity at smart home, which requires unified specifications and products. While Matter has already certified over 1,000 products at an unprecedented pace, the availability of its products is still limited compared to mature technologies. It seems that the new protocol is in a chicken-and-egg phase of entry.
Given that Matter is based on technologies like Wi-Fi and 802.15.4 that primarily support IP, they inherently have a significant lead when compared to existing products. However, Matter 1.3 continues to close the gap in supported device types and functionalities, and although Matter 1.3 products will take some time to hit the shelves due to typical product design cycles, there is no doubt that Matter is unifying the smart home.
Nordic Semiconductor and Silicon Labs have announced plans to roll out new SDKs featuring the Matter 1.3 stack in the second quarter. As members of the Connectivity Standards Alliance and longtime partners with both Nordic Semiconductor and Silicon Labs, Dusun IoT will consistently stay on the cutting edge of industry developments.
If you’re looking to customize matter hardware solutions, Feel free to reach out to us. We welcome new collaborations and are excited to bring more advanced smart solutions to our partners.
