The topic we are going to talk about today has to do with smart homes.
When it comes to smart homes, no one should be unfamiliar with them. Back at the beginning of this century, when the concept of the Internet of Things was first born, the most important application area, was the smart home.
Over the years, with the continuous development of digital technology, more and more smart hardware for the home has been invented. These hardware have brought great convenience to family life and added to the pleasure of living.
Over time, you'll have a lot of apps on your phone.
Yes, this is the ecological barrier problem that has long plagued the smart home industry.
In fact, the development of IoT technology has always been characterised by fragmentation. Different application scenarios match different characteristics of IoT technologies. Some need large bandwidth, some need low power consumption, some focus on stability, and some are very concerned about cost.
This has given rise to a mix of 2/3/4/5G, NB-IoT, eMTC, LoRa, SigFox, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Thread and other underlying communication technologies.
The smart home, in turn, is a typical LAN scenario, with short-range communication technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Thread, etc., in a wide range of categories and cross-use.
Moreover, as smart homes are geared towards non-specialist users, manufacturers tend to build their own platforms and UI interfaces and adopt proprietary application layer protocols to ensure user experience. This has led to the current "ecosystem war".
The barriers between ecosystems have not only caused endless troubles for users, but also for vendors and developers - launching the same product requires development for different ecosystems, significantly increasing workload and costs.
Because the problem of ecological barriers is a serious constraint to the long-term development of smart homes, the industry has started to work on finding a solution to this problem.
The birth of the Matter protocol
In December 2019, Google and Apple joined the Zigbee Alliance, joining Amazon and over 200 companies and thousands of experts worldwide to promote a new application layer protocol, known as Project CHIP (Connected Home over IP) protocol.
As you can see from the name, CHIP is all about connecting the home based on IP protocols. This protocol was launched with the aim of increasing device compatibility, simplifying product development, improving the user experience and driving the industry forward.
After the CHIP working group was born, the original plan was to release the standard in 2020 and launch the product in 2021. However, for various reasons, this plan did not materialise.
In May 2021, the Zigbee Alliance changed its name to CSA (Connectivity Standards Alliance). At the same time, the CHIP project was renamed to Matter (meaning "situation, event, matter" in Chinese).
The Alliance was renamed because many members were reluctant to join Zigbee, and CHIP was changed to Matter, probably because the word CHIP was too well known (it originally meant "chip") and very easy to crash.
In October 2022, the CSA finally released version 1.0 of the Matter standard protocol. Shortly before that, on 18 May 2023, Matter version 1.1 was also released.
CSA Consortium members are divided into three levels: Initiator, Participant and Adopter. Initiators are at the highest level, being the first to participate in the drafting of the protocol, are members of the Alliance's Board of Directors and participate to some extent in the leadership and decisions of the Alliance.
Google and Apple, as representatives of the initiators, contributed significantly to the early specifications of Matter.
Google contributed its own Smart Home's existing network layer and application protocol Weave (a set of standard authentication mechanisms and commands for device operation), while Apple contributed HAP Security (for end-to-end communication and local LAN manipulation, ensuring strong privacy and security).
According to the latest data on the official website, the CSA consortium was initiated by a total of 29 companies, with 282 participants and 238 adopters.
Led by the giants, industry players are actively exporting their intellectual property for Matter and are committed to building a grand unified seamlessly connected ecosystem.
Matter's protocol architecture
After all this talk, how exactly do we understand the Matter protocol? What is its relationship with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Thread and Zigbee?
Not so fast, let's look at a diagram:
This is a diagram of the protocol architecture: Wi-Fi, Thread, Bluetooth (BLE) and Ethernet are the underlying protocols (physical and data link layers); upwards is the network layer, including IP protocols; upwards is the transport layer, including TCP and UDP protocols; and the Matter protocol, as we have already mentioned, is an application layer protocol.
Bluetooth and Zigbee also have dedicated network, transport and application layers, in addition to the underlying protocols.
Therefore, Matter is a mutually exclusive protocol with Zigbee and Bluetooth. Currently, the only underlying protocols that Matter supports are Wi-Fi, Thread and Ethernet (Ethernet).
In addition to the protocol architecture, we need to know that the Matter protocol is designed with an open philosophy.
It is an open source protocol that can be viewed, used and modified by anyone to suit different application scenarios and needs, which will allow for the technical benefits of transparency and reliability.
The security of the Matter protocol is also a major selling point. It uses the latest encryption technology and supports end-to-end encryption to ensure that users' communications are not stolen or tampered with.
Matter's networking model
Next, we look at the actual networking of Matter. Again, this is illustrated by a diagram:
As the diagram shows, Matter is a TCP/IP based protocol, so Matter is whatever TCP/IP is grouped into.
Wi-Fi and Ethernet devices that support the Matter protocol can be connected directly to a wireless router. Thread devices that support the Matter protocol can also be interconnected to IP-based networks such as Wi-Fi via Border Routers.
Devices that do not support the Matter protocol, such as Zigbee or Bluetooth devices, can be connected to a bridge-type device (Matter Bridge/Gateway) to convert the protocol and then connect to a wireless router.
Industrial advances in Matter
Matter represents a trend in smart home technology. As such, it has received widespread attention and enthusiastic support since its inception.
The industry is very optimistic about Matter's development prospects. According to a recent report by market research firm ABI Research, more than 20 billion wirelessly connected smart home devices will be sold worldwide from 2022 to 2030, and a large proportion of these device types will meet the Matter specification.
Matter currently uses a certification mechanism. Manufacturers develop hardware that needs to pass the CSA consortium's certification process in order to receive the Matter certificate and be allowed to use the Matter logo.
According to the CSA, the Matter specification will apply to a wide range of device types such as control panels, door locks, lights, sockets, switches, sensors, thermostats, fans, climate controllers, blinds and media devices, covering almost all scenarios in the smart home.
Industry-wise, the industry already has a number of manufacturers whose products have passed Matter certification and are gradually entering the market. On the part of chip and module manufacturers, there is also relatively strong support for Matter.
Conclusion
Matter's greatest role as an upper-layer protocol is to break down the barriers between different devices and ecosystems. Different people have different perspectives on Matter, with some seeing it as a savior and others seeing it as a clean slate.
At the moment, the Matter protocol is still in the early stages of coming to market and more or less faces some problems and challenges, such as higher costs and a longer renewal cycle for the stock of devices.
In any case, it brings a shock to the dull years of smart home technology systems. If the old system is limiting the development of technology and limiting the user experience, then we need technologies like Matter to step up and take on the big task.
Whether Matter will be a success or not, we can't say for sure. However, it is the vision of the entire smart home industry and the responsibility of every company and practitioner in the industry to empower digital technology into home life and continuously improve the digital living experience of users.
Hope that the smart home will soon break all technical shackles and truly come into every home.
Post time: Jun-29-2023