SmartThings boss Mark Benson talks to us about all things Matter
When the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) took the covers off of Matter 1.3 back in May, adding a bunch of new device categories to the mix including leak detectors, electric vehicle chargers, microwave ovens and laundry dryers, cynics (yep, me included) were quick to point out that we were still waiting for devices from the Matter 1.2 launch (October 2023) to actually arrive.
In fact, eight months and counting since Matter 1.2 added the likes of robot vacuum cleaners and air purifiers to the equation, none of the major smart home ecosystems – i.e. Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple HomeKit or Samsung SmartThings – have yet to extend Matter support and compatibility to anything outside of the original Matter 1.0 launch device categories… and that went live in 2022.
Device manufacturers are seemingly ready; the likes of Roborock, Ecovacs and AiDot have all announced Matter devices from the extended Matter device categories that have arrived with the updates, so why the hold up from the platform side?
Mark Benson, Head of SmartThings, explained to us that it’s not such a straightforward process.
“Matter is great step for the industry, but it is a monumental kind of change that doesn’t happen overnight,” Benson told us.
“It’s quite something to bring the brands together to get interoperability to work, and to make that easy for the consumer. But it’s not something that’s easy.”
Detailing the timeline of events that happens across the CSA and members when a new version of Matter goes live, Benson was quick to point out that brands have a lot of work to do behind the scenes in order to get devices into the hands of consumers.
“There’s a sequence of activities that happens. This is kind of stating the obvious, but it’s worth just saying, Matter itself is a is a standard. It’s not itself a product. And when we get up to the release event, like 1.2 or 1.3, that moment in time is when the standard is now released,” he explained.
“So that then allows companies to then take that and say, ‘okay, now let’s, let’s work on our own engineering to support that,’ and that takes time. It takes time for Matter controllers to be able to support that.
“There’s a lot of different moving pieces, because you’ve got product companies and you got the standards group within the CSA, and you’ve got the ecosystems like that and they’re all kind of in movement together.
“I can imagine a utopia where everybody is simultaneously at the exact same moment; like all the major ecosystems all the major smartphone brands, and the spec is like released at once. But I don’t know if that’s possible, really, to do.”
Device types aside it’s fairly obvious, even to the most casual observer, that Matter’s launch has been dogged with issues, criticism and confusion, and the SmartThings boss agrees that Matter has a way to go before it becomes a recognized, and respected, standard.
“We’re not quite there yet in terms of having the breadth of device type support that will be needed in order to make Matter a household name, or icon that people recognise on product packaging, like they do with Wi-Fi or USB,” Benson explained.
“But that’s something that will come as that awareness grows.”
Benson also explained that Matter has the advantage of a matured, evolved, audience that is much more likely to be seeking smart home devices than the user-base SmartThings were targeting when the brand first went live on Kickstarter, around 12 years ago.
“This is an exciting time for the smart home industry,” he told us. “And I think part of that is because the type of users that are getting involved with smart home are different now than they were five or ten years ago. These users are more everyday users.
“They’re not necessarily the like, early adopters of, you know, leading edge tech, or innovators, they’re more what we call the early majority, of the mass market. They are really comfortable with tech but yet they won’t embrace it unless it really solves a pragmatic problem for them, or is something that makes a difference in their lives. They won’t just kind of throw money at something they don’t believe in.”
The idea that if the Matter logo is on the box then it should “just work” has been hammered by the CSA since the standard was first made official. And it’s an ethos that plays perfectly into the type of audience that Benson described.
However, with the likes of the Aqara Hub M3 landing with only a tiny “officially-supported” list of devices and brands, and Matter-compatible devices like the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra not actually being compatible with any of the big name Matter controllers, it’s an ethos that’s already being pulled apart.
Making things that “just work” will be make or break for Matter as a standard. And those on the inside know that.
“The idea of Matter is that products are compatible by design, and that consumers will have high confidence that they are going to work with their Matter based setup,” explained Benson.
“If that doesn’t happen, then that’s a problem.”
