Apple’s relaunch of its HomePod smart speaker includes not just upgraded acoustics but a new feature: support for Matter, which Apple describes as “the new smart home connectivity standard.”
The idea behind this project of an industry group called the Connectivity Standards Alliance is to get different gadgets to get communicate – even if they’re from Apple and Samsung, and without customers having to buy new hardware or install new software.
“It’s taking away the guessing game from a consumer perspective,” said Carolina Milanesi, president and principal analyst of Creative Strategies.
In addition to its interoperability provisions, the Matter specification comes with baseline security requirements that include encrypted device-to-device communication via WiFi, Bluetooth and a newer wireless protocol called Thread – meaning that one gadget doesn’t have to pass messages through a cloud service to reach another sitting one room away.
Gadget exhibits at CES featured an impressive array of devices sporting the Matter logo – it looks a little bit like three stylized arrows facing each other–accompanied by pledges by their vendors to push this standard. The Alliance now lists 520-plus members, including such major tech firms as Amazon, Apple, Google, LG and Samsung.
MacDailyNews Note: You need a home hub to control your HomeKit and Matter accessories while you’re away from home, share control of your accessories with others, and automate your accessories to do what you want, when you want.
Read more about how to set up your HomePod, HomePod mini, Apple TV, or iPad as a home hub via Apple Support here.
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So it’ll connect to Microsoft, Google and Samsung devices with functional voice assistants?
Hang on is aniPad now able to be a Home hub? I thought they had removed that ability, I was preventing updates to try to avoid this problem. Rather confusing esp as my iPad had somehow updated to something new and yet still operates as a hub so far. Have Apple changed their mind here?
Will it now connect to a eero 6 network?