February 17, 2025

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Will Matter matter in 2025? The smart home savior needs a big year

Will Matter matter in 2025? The smart home savior needs a big year

When the shackles of Project Chip were finally shaken off, and Matter launched in late 2022, it arrived with plenty of lofty promises.

Seamless smart home integration across ecosystems, simplified device onboarding, 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.”

Within a few months though, it became clear that Matter was struggling.

I actually 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 too wide of the mark. The standard was plagued by slow device support, half-baked 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 Matter’s existence and was actually one of the least scything takes.

However, the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) has continued, with huge efforts, to try and create a smart home platform that consumers can count on.

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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 foundational issues and the uptake from manufacturers is rapidly increasing.

But I’m hoping that 2025 might finally be the year when Matter really starts to deliver on its original promise.

And that’s a hope shared by the CSA’s Head of Technology, Chris LaPré, who I caught up with recently over in Las Vegas at CES 2025.

“Now we can really start to build on things,” he told me. “It isn’t still 100% yet, so we need to get it to 100%.

“I think we’re in the right place at the right time, and we’ve fixed some of the issues. This is going to be a big year.”

The Enhanced Multi-Admin breakthrough

Arguably the most significant update to arrive with the Matter 1.4 update, in November of last year, was the introduction of Enhanced Multi-Admin.

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This feature aims to solve one of Matter’s most frustrating failures: its inability to deliver on the dream of effortless cross-platform compatibility. Currently, trying to get devices to work seamlessly across ecosystems – think pairing a smart light with Apple Home and then controlling it with Alexa – has been nothing short of a nightmare.

Have a read of my Govee Light Strip M1 review from late 2023, as a good example of just how badly Matter had been failing on this front.

For a while now, when a device I have been reviewing is Matter compatible, I have basically been ignoring the Matter angle as much as possible. I’ll mention that cross platform compatibility is, in theory, possible – but there’s no way I wanted to be wasting any more time going down that rabbit hole… nor recommending anyone do so.

Enhanced Multi-Admin, if widely adopted, could change that. By automating device integration across platforms, users wouldn’t need to jump between apps or reconfigure devices to make them work on different systems.

This could finally usher in the frictionless experience that Matter promised from the outset.

However, as with all things Matter, the real test will be whether major players like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Samsung fully embrace these updates and implement them swiftly.

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That stuff is out of the CSA’s hands, unfortunately. It can lay the path for Big Tech but it can’t force it to actually follow it.

It’s a problem that the CSA has faced over the past couple of years when introducing new device types through its bi-annual updates. For example, it took nearly a year for the major platforms to actually 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 whereby devices were actually going on sale as Matter compatible – such as the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra and AiDot’s P200 Pro – but there was no way of actually adding them to a Matter controller.

Tackling Thread’s growing pains

Thread – a cornerstone of Matter – has been another source of headaches. Its potential to create a robust and responsive smart home network has been undermined by the chaotic implementation of Thread routers and networks, and also the cost for brands to join the Thread Group and certify their products.

Matter 1.4 and also Thread 1.4 (the version number is a coincidence) will attempt to addresses some of the issues by allowing certified Home Routers and Access Points to store and share Thread network credentials.

This could simplify Thread’s setup and maintenance, making it less daunting for users and reducing the confusion of managing multiple Thread networks.

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But again, this relies on router manufacturers and platforms adopting these changes and the Thread Group making it more streamlined for brands to use the tech. Without their cooperation, Thread risks becoming another smart home feature that’s promising on paper but underwhelming in practice.

And that concern was shared with me by Chris LaPré. “For a startup that hasn’t touched Thread yet… the Thread Group basically says ‘if you’re going to make a Thread device, you need to be a member of us too, and you need to certify your device, at device level, not module level, with us too,’ then it’s a whole new set of costs.”

Energy management taking center stage

Beyond connectivity, Matter 1.3 and 1.4 introduced several new device categories aimed at household energy management, including support for solar panels, heat pumps, and battery systems.

These updates reflect a growing demand for smart home technology that doesn’t just add 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 powering appliances with solar energy during the day.

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These features are a glimpse of what smart homes could become, but – again – they hinge on manufacturers and platforms embracing these new capabilities.

“The last couple updates have been appliances and then energy,” Chris LaPré explained to me. “I think both of those have to play out. Like appliances, we’ve seen some announcements, but we don’t really have ubiquitous appliances.

“It’s going to take a few years, probably. And that’s when energy management can then really start to balloon, and we can really start to save money.”

Expanding Matter’s skillset

Another problem that needs addressing is that, even when device types are supported, the controls offered through Matter are often too basic.

For instance, while a Matter-compatible thermostat might let you set a target temperature, it won’t allow for things like reverting to a schedule, setting timers or more complex automations. Similarly, apps like Govee and Philips Hue offer an absolute plethora of smart light customization options in their native apps, but lighting controls through Matter are incredibly stripped back.

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.

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For the CSA to truly win over users, it needs to speed up device support and expand the range of controls and features available to manufacturers. The good news is they know this. Upcoming updates maybe won’t include such noticeable expansions of device types, rather fine-tuning the options and features for device types already supported.

The road ahead

Matter’s journey has been anything but smooth. Yet, 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 Matter delivers on its promises and becomes the standard smart home users have been waiting for.

For that to happen, the CSA needs more than just technical improvements. It needs the full cooperation of major players, faster adoption of new features, and a commitment to making Matter more than just 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 Matter, and also getting ecosystem compatibility from the major platforms ticked off at the same time (except Amazon, who has frequently been the ‘problem child’ since Matter launched) at its Interop Lab, in Portland, Oregon.

If all of these pieces fall into place, and the potentially from some of the 1.3 and 1.4 upgrades materialize, then Matter could finally transform the smart home landscape.

I really hope it does.

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