Matter is finally opening up to new product categories. A year after its launch, the standard supposed to revolutionize the connected home is still far from having fulfilled its mission, except perhaps for Apple users who are often neglected by manufacturers of connected objects. In any case, version 1.0 only addressed a tiny part of the connected objects in the home, the simplest ones at that: bulbs, sockets, blind motors, etc. We nevertheless knew that working groups had been organized around other product categories, and their work is finally coming to fruition with the announcement of Matter 1.2.
9 new supported device categories
More precisely, the Connectivity Standard Alliance (CSA), in charge of developing the standard, announces that its new version provides support for robot vacuum cleaners, washing machines, dishwashers on the washing side, but also that of refrigerators for the kitchen , as well as that of air conditioners, fans, air purifiers, ambient sensors and smoke detectors for the air in the home. In total, there are 9 categories of devices added to those already supported, for a list now comprising around twenty categories in total.
This version 1.2 will therefore mark an important step in the development of Matter, especially since it finally brings household appliances into the ecosystem, but it should be noted that the standard will not be able, in this version in any case, to take into account supports all the features that manufacturers can offer, or even sometimes common features, such as mapping for robot vacuum cleaners. You will therefore always have to use the official application to indicate a specific room or area to clean. It should nevertheless be possible to use another app to start cleaning and monitor its progress, switch from suction mode to washing and combined modes, or to receive error messages.
Orders more or less limited depending on the category
For washing again, but dishes this time, Matter will support the launch of a cycle and its remote monitoring, but only monitoring will be available for washing machines. Refrigerators will be supported with temperature adjustment and display of control information; note that freezers and wine cellars are included in the refrigerators.
Matter 1.2 will also provide support for air conditioning with control of the temperature and rotation speed, support for fans with control, again, of the rotation speed, but also of movements and current modes (night, nature). …), or even support for smoke and CO2 detectors with support for notifications and visual and audible alerts. Air quality sensors also join the products supported with the new version of the standard, as do air purifiers to which the sensors will be able to communicate their data. Filter wear should also be able to be monitored outside of the official app.
In short, Matter will not necessarily allow you to do without the official application with the most sophisticated devices, which is however not surprising; It’s hard to expect a universal solution to support uncommon features, let alone out of the box. The CSA should nevertheless maintain a rate of two updates per year to improve support for connected objects that are already supported, without forgetting of course to extend it to ever more categories. Many are still excluded, like surveillance cameras and connected doorbells, although mentioned since the launch of Matter. So let’s hope it will be for the next version.
A little more waiting to see the changes in Matter 1.2
In the meantime, Matter 1.2 is about to arrive. The CSA has already made its new development kit available to manufacturers, but the first compatible robot vacuum cleaners and washing machines will probably not arrive for several months. The CSA seems to be banking on 2024, even if we know that some manufacturers are very involved and enthusiastic, like Whirlpool. In addition, for these new categories of devices to truly be controlled with Matter, Matter controllers – Echo or Google Assistant speakers and screens, HomePods and Apple TVs, etc. – will need to be updated by their manufacturers. respective.