Standards are proposed for every technical segment of the market. The idea is to foster interoperability of technologies that come from a variety of new and old companies, making the combination of products work seamlessly. Without standards, every new product could be a stand-alone success and a failure when it can’t be integrated with existing technology.
Gather hundreds of technology companies under an umbrella organization devoted to developing commonality through standards, and the potential for success is enormous. Such is the case with the Connectivity Standards Alliance, formerly the Zigbee Alliance, an international community of more than 550 technology companies committed to open standards for the Internet of Things.
CSA has released the Matter 1.0 specification for IoT and announced the creation of the Matter certification program. Member companies who make up all facets of the IoT market now have a complete program for bringing the next generation of interoperable products to work across brands and platforms with greater privacy, security, and simplicity for consumers.
As part of the Matter 1.0 release, authorized test labs are open for product certification, the test harnesses and tools are available, and the open-source reference design SDK (software development kit) is complete – all to bring new, innovative products to market. Further, Alliance members with devices already deployed and with plans to update their products to support Matter can now do so, once their products are certified.
Member companies—such as Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Google, Samsung SmartThings, and Signify — have brought their technologies, experience, and innovations together to ensure Matter meets the needs of all stakeholders including users, product makers, and platforms. Collectively, these companies led the way through requirements and specification development, reference design, multiple test events and final specification validation to reach this industry milestone.
More than just a specification, the Matter 1.0 standard launches with test cases and comprehensive test tools for Alliance members and a global certification program—including eight authorized test labs that are primed to test not only Matter, but also Matter’s underlying network technologies, Wi-Fi and Thread.
Wi-Fi enables Matter devices to interact over a high-bandwidth local network and allows smart home devices to communicate with the cloud. Thread provides an energy efficient and highly reliable mesh network within the home. Both the Wi-Fi Alliance and Thread Group partnered with the Connectivity Standards Alliance to help realize the complete vision of Matter.
According to the Thread Group, Matter and Thread resolve interoperability and connectivity issues in smart homes so manufacturers can focus on other value-adding innovations. Thread creates a self-healing mesh network which grows more responsive and reliable with each added device, and its ultra-lower power architecture extends battery life. Combined, Thread with Matter is a powerful choice for product companies and a great value for consumers.
Matter also leverages Wi-Fi’s sophisticated network efficiency, global pervasiveness of more than 18 billion devices in use today, and robust standards-based foundation to help deliver the IoT vision. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED and Matter bring simple and secure interoperability for a better user experience with a wide range of IoT devices.
Matter is also striking new ground with security policies and processes using distributed ledger technology and Public Key Infrastructure to validate device certification and provenance. This will help to ensure users are connecting authentic, certified, and up-to-date devices to their homes and networks.
This initial release of Matter, running over Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Thread, and using Bluetooth Low Energy for device commissioning, will support a variety of common smart home products, including lighting and electrical, HVAC controls, window coverings and shades, safety and security sensors, door locks, media devices including TVs, controllers as both devices and applications, and bridges.
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