Smart Things at the Gates: How Much Hardware is Needed for a Better Connected Smart Home? Jaeyeon Jung on Matter Certification and Expectations
The road to smart home nirvana is paved with different standards, like Zigbee, Z-Wave, Samsung SmartThings, Wi-Fi HaLow, and Insteon, to name a few. These protocols and others will continue to exist and operate. Google has merged its Thread and Weave technologies into Matter. The new standard also employs Wi-Fi and Ethernet standards and uses Bluetooth LE for device setup.
I still think Matter is on track to provide a stronger underlying infrastructure for the smart home, but it’s not there yet. Even by “spring,” I think it will be too early for people to start using Matter. It’s clear that there is a lot more cooperation needed between the major players before it’s a viable experience for everyone. Because anyone who goes through what I did this past week trying to add the Tapo smart plug to multiple platforms will be first in line at the Best Buy return counter.
CSA says the last delay was to accommodate more devices and platforms to make sure they all worked together before the release. More than 130 devices and sensors across 16 development platforms (operating systems and chipsets) are working through certification, and you can expect many more soon.
Jaeyeon Jung, Samsung Electronics corporate vice president and head of SmartThings’ mobile experience business, told The Verge in an interview that the company received its Matter certification early on Wednesday, October 12th, a week after Matter launched. This week, the Connectivity Standards Alliance began to issue certifications and it was the first to get them, according to Mindala-Freeman.
The good news is that Thread border routers will be made of Smart Things v3 hub and $35 dongle from Aeotec. “We worked with Silicon Labs to use software to simultaneously run Zigbee and Thread using the same hardware chipset,” says Jung. “Once we roll out the software, SmartThings v3 hubs will support both Zigbee and Matter over Thread devices, along with the dongle, too.”
While v2 hubs aren’t capable of being upgraded to Thread and will support Matter devices over Wi-Fi and ethernet, Jung says they will be able to control any Thread devices using a Thread border router built into another device. If you do not add a dongle, the software-based hubs in the Family Hub fridge, and TVs, will also be the same.
Jung says Samsung’s smart appliance ecosystem is one of the reasons the company thinks consumers will choose to use SmartThings over another platform now that Matter is making compatibility of devices less of an issue in the smart home. (SmartThings arguably built its brand on being the most open platform of the major players).
Aqara gave a sneak peak at its smart home plan at the Matter launch event. It starts with a free software update in December for the Hub M2 to make many of Aqara’s existing Zigbee devices Matter compatible. That will be followed by the release of Aqara’s first two Matter-over-Thread devices in early 2023 and a new multi-protocol hub coming sometime in the future.
It can charge your gadgets. The Station is a fast wireless charging pad, that will charge other phones, just not as fast. I am definitely here for these multipurpose hubs. While Matter requires a “controller” to work, no one was asking for more little white boxes to clutter up their entertainment consoles. The company showed off the Home Hub last year, but we are not getting it.
Launching first in Korea and coming to the US in early February, the Station will cost $59.99 ($79.99 with a USB-C adaptor) according to and comes in black or white. It is a completely new piece of hardware and software that is designed to be used with the existing wireless charging pad.
We got a first look at the gadget here at CES, and it’s a nice, slimline, and compact device powered by USB-C. It has a small tactile button that triggers SmartThings scenes. It would be easy and inexpensive to have one of these in each main room of your home as somewhere to drop your phone while simultaneously turning on your lights — either by pressing the button or just by putting your phone on the charger.
There is a small button on the device that can be used for things like smart home radios. When you press this little SmartThings logo, it can control scenes or devices set up in the SmartThings app. There are three options: single-click, double-click, and long-press.
You can also use the charging state of Galaxy phones to trigger an automation. When you place the phone down, it can turn on a Good Night scene that shuts off your lights, lock your door, and adjust your thermostat. It could turn on Good Morning if you pick it up after 7AM.
The Station works with the SmartThings Find service to help you locate your gadgets. If you set it up with your Galaxy smartphone, the pad will be pre-configured to ring your phone when you double-press the button. It also acts as an always-at-home Find device scanner, so you can know where your smartphones, tablets, watches, and earbuds are. Plus, a new function continually scans for Galaxy SmartTags or SmartTag Plus and can send a notification when a tag or device leaves or returns home.
It also has a thread border and zigbee smart things hub with wireless and wi-fi built in. There is no Z-Wave support. You will still need to buy an Aeotec SmartThings Hub if you want support for your Z-Wave devices.
One of the key wireless protocols Matter is built on is called Thread and will be supported by the Station as a Thread border router. Thread is a low-power, low-latency mesh network primarily used for low-bandwidth devices such as sensors, lighting, and shades. The Station is the cheapest border routers around and it could help extend the Thread mesh network, if you have multiple in your home.
The TP-Link Tapo P125M is able to work with Matter’s multi-admin feature. The plug also works with TP-Link’s own Tapo app (not its Kasa app).
I reset the Tapo plug and set it up on iOS using the Matter-enabled SmartThings app, with the SmartThings Station as a Matter controller. (Side note: I also set up the plug using the Apple Home app and a HomePod Mini. But that process was identical to adding a device to HomeKit. The setup process with SmartThings is what’s notable here.)
The Eve plug has detailed energy usage info that can be accessed from the Eve app. The Tapo plug doesn’t offer any energy monitoring. The Eve also has a similar compact form factor, so you can fit two stacked on top of each other. It supports up to 1,800 watts and 15 amps.
Unlike other TP-Link plugs, there is no energy monitoring available which means you can see how many hours the plug has been used in a single day. The Tapo app has an auto-update feature where you can set a time of day where the plug will check for and download any updates. This will allow you to use your smart home platform app to control it without having to use the Tapo app again.
The Tapo P125M: Adding a Matter Plug to a Google Assistant or a Smart Things App on a Smartphone without a Cloud
A dialogue box appeared on the phone as soon as the plug was powered on and offered to scan the device to Google Home or the Tapo app. An option at the bottom of the box to choose another app presented SmartThings as a choice, but not Alexa — even though the Alexa app was installed on the device. The companies have worked together to make this work more smoothly, thanks to the expansion of the multi- admin partnership.
With a Matter plug like the Tapo, you can share your plug across any platform and to any smartphone in your home. No cloud required. No account setup needed. The idea was to connect the Tapo plug to the other compatible platforms through the wireless network once I added it to Matter.
The Tapo P125M is a Matter-over-WiFi plug, so you will need a Wi-Fi connection and a Matter controller (hub) to set it up. This is different from most Wi-Fi smart plugs, which need Wi-Fi but no other hardware.
If you would like to add a device from Amazon to another platform, you should go to the device’s settings page and tap on the option titled “Other Assistants and Apps.” You can put the plug into pairings where it broadcasts its availability for 15 minutes, giving you time to open the other app and paste a unique code into it.
The final step was to pair the Apple Home with the phone’s camera and use a pair ofQR code to do it. Now, the plug was on all four platforms.
I could use Alexa to turn the plug off, Siri to turn it on, and then tap an icon on a Google Nest Hub Max to turn it back off. The only noticeable lag was when the device was turned off by another platform quicker than the rest, which was about 30 seconds behind the rest.
I was able to set it up in the beginning with Apple Home, but never add it to all four of the other platforms because of a problem I had with the plug.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/23599437/tp-link-tapo-p125m-review-matter-apple-amazon-google-smartthings
How to Setup an Amazon Multi-Messenger App (MatterSpeak) in the Cloud? The Case of a Simple Multi-Modal Additive Device
Multi-admin is one of Matter’s main selling points. And while using it across four platforms is likely an edge use case — most people will probably use one or two platforms, maybe three — it’s a feature that should still work regardless. It is not ready as of today.
I used a phone to setup as Amazon doesn’t have a Matter app. The device was found immediately by the operating system without me having to open an app.
This feature is nice, but not as useful as the iPhone and Matter believes in a simpler setup process. I didn’t need an app on my phone to do anything.
But I wanted to use Alexa. So, I closed out of this option and opened the Alexa app on the Pixel. The home screen gave me instructions to connect a smart plug. This is because I have Device Discovery turned on, which shows any available devices on your Wi-Fi network (you can turn this on or off in the Alexa app settings).
The plug asked me if it had a Matter logo. I proceeded to scan that. The code was smudged beyond being readable after removing the plug a couple of times, so luckily it was on the side of the plug.
Next, I went to add it to the other Matter platforms, and while I was eventually successful, the process was inconsistent, and the compatibility between platforms feels very shaky.
In order to get the code for the new app you can only do it once and you have to keep it around in case you ever reset the device.
Chris La Pre from the Connectivity Standards Alliance (the organization behind Matter) tells me this is by design. “The original code no longer works. The device needs to be put back in pairing mode, and the original ecosystem will provide a new code,” he says. There is a chance that a neighbor could Pair Devices if they see the barcode.
This is not explained in any platform apps. Many people are trying to add the code to another platform by scanning it again. In every app I tried the pairing process from, the steps to do so were buried in the settings — almost like they don’t want you to find them! If you pair a device to a single platform, the option to add it to other compatible platforms should pop up. It would be very simple.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/23599437/tp-link-tapo-p125m-review-matter-apple-amazon-google-smartthings
The 40 Eve Energy: The First Thread Devices in the Matter Sector? The Amazon/Apple/iPad Experience Reveals It Wrong
The $40 Eve Energy is a smart plug that will be released at the end of March. It doesn’t work withAlexa because the Matter controllers don’t support Thread. If I were a betting girl, I would bet that this plug wouldn’t be released until it worked with Amazon.
Essentially, I was using a version of Apple Home, because the Matter application is built into the iPhone’s operating system. Rather than putting it in my Home app, the plug was added to my Apple account, and my sharing credentials were stored in Keychain. In theory, this means if I wanted to add it to another app on iOS, the data should transfer automatically, so I wouldn’t need to copy and paste codes.
The Eve plug can be used if you want to benefit from the features of Thread. Thread uses less power than other wireless mesh networks and offers better response times. In my testing, non-Matter Thread devices from Eve have proven to be very responsive. It was a different story in Matter, with Thread devices dropping offline frequently.
It is most likely due to Thread border routers from different companies not talking to each other yet. There are separate Thread networks for both the Apple TV and the Google Nest Hub Max in your home. This causes problems. And while Amazon, Google, Apple, and Samsung all tell me they are working on making their devices talk to each other, as of now, Thread-over-Matter is still wonky. Soon, I will be writing about this in more depth.
The app is coming in the spring. Google tells me its version is “coming soon,” and we know several companies (including Eve and Nanoleaf) have slated the release of their new Matter products for late March or early summer. Amazon has said that Thread will be available on all of its products this spring, so it’s possible that this will be the first time you’ll see Thread on its products.