Matter 1.4 Continues the CSA’s Commitment to Unifying the Home
The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) reached another milestone with the release of Matter 1.4 on November 5th, 2024. Approximately two years since the 1.0 release, the CSA and its members have been on a mission to ensure the evolution of the Matter specification by introducing new device types, improving usability, and increasing functionality.
I am especially excited about this release because it addresses some of the key concerns that have been raised around Matter. Inspired by the Connectivity Lab in our Boston office, I did Matter testing in my home at the end of last year and presented those findings at several conferences. While I have continued to see significant improvements in Matter in areas that include reliability and stability, Matter 1.4 specifically addresses several concerns I noted in my testing.
Matter 1.4 Introduces Long Idle Time
During my initial testing, I saw reduced battery life for Matter devices compared to similar Zigbee and Z-Wave devices in my home. This was also an area of concern we’ve heard directly from our customers developing Matter devices. Silicon Labs helped drive improvements for sleepy devices for Matter (Matter refers to them as an intermittently connected device – or ICD), including support of both SIT (short idle time), and LIT (long idle time).
Support for SIT devices was introduced in Matter 1.2 and was ideal for actuators that have a shorter check in period. Locks are a great example of this where they have to wakeup often to check with their parent to see if there is a pending command such as lock or unlock. SIT devices can sleep for up to 15 seconds, but for many actuator devices, 3 to 5 seconds is typical.
However, for devices like switches and sensors that run off coin cell batteries, the sleep times need to be much longer – minutes or even hours. This is where LIT comes in. LIT allows devices to sleep for up to 18 hours while still maintaining a reliable connection on the network. This significantly reduces power consumption and improves battery life to be more in line with devices like Zigbee and Z-Wave, which have set the gold standard for years of battery life on coin cell batteries.
Matter Certifiable Home Routers and Access Points
Another observation in my testing was that Matter over Thread support might be limited in the home. One of the great things about Matter was the ability for ecosystems to rollout software updates, enabling Matter on existing deployed devices. This meant that not long after the specification release in 2022, there were millions of networks in the home supporting Matter. The issue was that most of these devices were for Matter over Wi-Fi and not necessarily Matter over Thread. While Matter over Wi-Fi is great for devices in the home, including line-powered devices like LED lighting, smart plugs, and even battery-powered devices like locks, it’s not ideal for sensors and switches that need to run on coin cell batteries. In addition, it’s difficult for consumers to know if their existing Matter network supports Matter over Thread. For example, in my home, I had 10 Echo devices, but only one supported Matter over Thread. Now one device is all you need, so I was able to deploy and test Matter over Thread devices, but how do consumers know if they have complete Matter support in their home.
This is where home routers and access points (HRAP) comes in. Devices like smart speakers, home routers, access points, and set-top boxes can now be Matter-certified HRAP devices by combining both a Wi-Fi and a Thread Border Router support, ensuring both Matter over Wi-Fi and Matter over Thread support in the home. In addition, HRAP devices will have a feature that allows users to add new Thread Border Routers to their existing network, simplifying the home network while improving reliability.
Matter 1.4 Provides Improved Ecosystem Support
Interoperability across ecosystems was a critical requirement for Matter and multi-admin was central to this vision, allowing users to connect devices across smart home Ecosystems. While I personally prefer a single ecosystem, I did test this feature. It did work, but it was very cumbersome to setup and maintain. However, Matter 1.4 is a game changer for multi-ecosystem support with Enhanced Multi-Admin. Where I had to manually configure each Matter device for each ecosystem, now users can configure their Matter network to connect both existing and new devices to multiple ecosystems automatically, enabling seamless support across ecosystems in the home.
New and Improved Device Types in Matter 1.4
Because Matter supports both Wi-Fi and Thread, it enables different use cases and device types, enabling the most diverse set of devices for the home. Matter 1.4 continues to enhance existing devices as well as introduce new devices.
With the introduction of new device types in Matter 1.4, including solar panels, batteries, heat pumps, and water heaters, we’re beginning to see the foundation for integrating your home’s largest energy-consuming devices and energy sources into a cohesive system. Currently, many of these devices rely on individual vendor apps and lack the ability to communicate with each other. Matter aims to unify these devices, and even now, you can monitor power and energy consumption from your HVAC, water boiler, and EVSE using Matter. This allows you to make informed decisions about usage based on your electricity rates and deals.
Additionally, you can manage the start and stop of your EV charging directly from the controller using the EVSE cluster. The inclusion of new device types also facilitates the integration of previously isolated systems from solar and battery manufacturers, enabling them to report their energy production and storage capacity. This integration allows the entire system to benefit from these energy sources.
While Matter continues to evolve in energy management, we are already seeing product manufactures and utility companies developing products to support these new capabilities.
Silicon Labs and Matter Enablement
Silicon Labs remains dedicated to the advancement and deployment of Matter. With the most comprehensive lineup of SoCs and modules for Matter over Wi-Fi and Matter over Thread, software and tools, including Simplicity Studio and Matter SDK, we focus on simplifying Matter development for our customers.
Silicon Labs Matter Extension is available now and supports Matter 1.4 features including both new and enhanced device types, support for LIT devices as well Enhanced Multi-Admin. To learn more about Silicon Labs and Matter go to www.siliconlabs.com/matter.
