Ever Trend Zone When the shackles of Project Chip were finally shaken, and the material launched in late 2022, it came with a lot of lofty promises.
Seamless smart home integration into ecosystems, the incorporation of simplified devices and a unified standard that would eliminate the chaos of competing platforms. For consumers, we were assured that the Matter logo on the box would eradicate Smart Home confusion, and that things would “just work.”
However, within a few months, it became clear that the subject was struggling.
In fact, I wrote an op-ed in March 2023 titled “Matter is a Mess” and while that headline was definitely Clickbaity, it wasn’t a statement that was overly broad. The standard was plagued by slow device support, half-hearted implementations, and a glaring gap between its vision and reality.
That op-ed was just one of hundreds that appeared online in the first few months of the subject’s existence, and it was actually one of the least captured.
However, the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) has continued, with great efforts, to try to create a smart home platform that consumers can count on.
And in 2024, it really started to steady the ship. With Matter 1.3 and 1.4, the standard is beginning to address some of its fundamental problems and manufacturer uptake is increasing rapidly.
But I hope that 2025 will finally be the year that the stuff really starts to deliver on its original promise.
And that’s a hope shared by CSA chief technology officer Chris Lapré, who I met recently in Las Vegas at CES 2025.
“Now we can really start building on things,” he told me. “It’s still not 100% yet, so we need to get to 100%.
“I think we are in the right place at the right time, and we have solved some of the problems. This is going to be a great year.”
The improved multi-admin advancement
Arguably the most significant update to arrive with the issue 1.4 update, in November of last year, was the introduction of better management improvements.
This feature aims to solve one of the subject’s most frustrating flaws: its inability to fulfill the dream of effortless cross-platform compatibility. Currently, trying to make devices work seamlessly across ecosystems—think pairing a smart light with Apple Home and then controlling it with Alexa—has been a nightmare.
Read my Strip Light M1 review from late 2023, as a good example of how badly it had been failing on this front.
For a while now, when a device I’ve been reviewing supports matter, I’ve basically been ignoring the matter angle as much as possible. I will mention that cross-platform compatibility is theoretically possible, but there’s no way I’d want to waste any more time going down that rabbit hole… nor recommend that anyone do so.
Better multi-admin, if widely adopted, could change that. By automating the integration of devices across platforms, users would not need to jump between applications or reconfigure devices to work on different systems.
This could finally usher in the frictionless experience that matter promised all along.
However, as with everything important, the real test will be whether major players like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Samsung fully embrace these updates and implement them quickly.
Those things are out of the CSA’s hands, unfortunately. You can follow the path for Big Tech, but you can’t force it to follow it.
It’s a problem the CSA has faced in recent years as it introduces new types of devices through its bi-annual updates. For example, it took almost a year for major platforms to support devices that were included with Matter 1.2, such as air purifiers and robot vacuum cleaners, and even then it happened in staggered stages.
So we were left with a scenario where devices were actually on sale as matter-compatible, like the Roborock S8 Maxv Ultra and Aidot’s P200 Pro, but there was no way to add them to a matter controller.
Addressing yarn growing pains
Thread, a cornerstone of the material, has been another source of headaches. Its potential to create a robust and responsive smart home network has been undermined by the chaotic deployment of routers and thread networks, and also the cost for brands to join the thread pool and certify their products.
Matter 1.4 and also Thread 1.4 (the version number is a coincidence) will attempt to address some of the issues by allowing certified home routers and access points to store and share thread network credentials.
This could simplify Thread setup and maintenance, making it less daunting for users and reducing the confusion of managing multiple thread networks.
But again, this relies on router manufacturers and platforms adopting these changes and the thread pool, making it more optimized for brands to use the technology. Without their cooperation, the thread risks becoming just another smart home feature that promises on paper but disappoints in practice.
And that concern was shared with me by Chris Lapré. “For a startup that hasn’t touched the thread yet… the thread pool basically says ‘if you’re going to make a thread device, you must also be a member of us and you must certify your device, at the device level, not the device level. module, with us too, “then it’s a whole new set of costs.”
Energy management taking center stage
Beyond connectivity, Subject 1.3 and 1.4 introduced several new device categories aimed at home energy management, including support for solar panels, heat pumps and battery systems.
These upgrades reflect a growing demand for smart home technology that not only adds convenience but also helps reduce energy costs and environmental impact.
The CSA’s vision of a fully integrated home energy system, where solar panels, battery walls and EV chargers work together intelligently, has enormous potential.
Imagine your home automatically charging your EV during off-peak hours or solar-powered appliances during the day.
These features are an idea of what they could become, but again, they depend on the manufacturers and platforms that adopt these new capabilities.
“The last two upgrades have been the appliances and then the power,” Chris Lapré explained to me. “I think they both have to play. Like appliances, we’ve seen some ads, but we don’t really have ubiquitous appliances.
“It will probably take a few years. And that’s when energy management can really start to balloon, and we can really start saving money.”
Expand subject skill set
Another issue that needs to be addressed is that even when device types are supported, the controls offered through the subject are often too basic.
For example, while a matter-compatible thermostat may allow you to set a target temperature, it won’t allow for things like returning to a schedule, setting timers, or more complex automations. Likewise, apps like Govee and Philips Hue offer a ton of smart light customization options in their native apps, but the lighting controls across the board are incredibly stripped down.
These gaps make matter feel less like a unifying standard and don’t allow users to access the full capabilities of their devices, if they choose the matter route.
For CSA to truly win over users, it must speed up device support and expand the range of controls and features available to manufacturers. The good news is that they know this. Future updates may not include such notable expansions of device types, but instead adjust the options and features of already supported device types.
The road ahead
The journey of matter has been anything but smooth. However, the progress made in 2024 suggests that the standard is finally moving in the right direction. The question is whether 2025 can be the year that the material delivers its promise and becomes the standard that smart home users have been waiting for.
For that to happen, the CSA needs more than just technical improvements. It needs full cooperation from major players, faster adoption of new features, and a commitment to making the stuff more than a checkbox on a spec sheet.
And it is making great strides in these areas by making it easier, and crucially cheaper, for brands to get their devices not only certified by the subject, and also getting ecosystem compatibility of the major platforms marked at the same time (except Amazon, who , who, who, who has frequently been the ‘problem child’ since the subject was released) in his introductory lab, in Portland, Oregon.
If all of these pieces fall into place, and potentially some of the 1.3 and 1.4 updates materialize, then things could finally transform the smart home landscape.
I really hope he does.
