Matter is now official, Alexa and Google Assistant will talk to any of your devices

The market for smart devices is completely broken. Each platform is independent and closed to the consumer, and this greatly limits the possibilities. For example, you can’t buy a speaker Amazon Echo To control a light bulb compatible with Google Home. But soon it will.

[Con lo nuevo de Google Home, ahora puedes ver tus cámaras desde cualquier lugar y dispositivo]

To solve this problem, the industry came together to create issuea standard any manufacturer could follow, either in future hardware or as a software update for those they’ve already sold.

Officially released the matter

Matter 1.0 has now been released, meaning early manufacturers can already provide support for the new standard. All Matter-enabled devices will be able to communicate with each other, even if they were originally designed for a closed platform; That, as long as it is updated of course.

The good news is that Matter has just been released, but There are already 190 approved devices in the market, which has already received or will receive an update to be compatible. In many cases, development has been underway for years, with support from industry giants such as Amazon, Google, Apple, and Samsung.

If you are wondering how the open standard could have received so much support from famous brands for its prioritization, the explanation is simple. All of these companies knew that the current situation was detrimental to them, because their platforms were compatible with only a few devices. With Matter, they can boast of seamlessly compatibility with hundreds of products.

Another feature of Matter for users is Enhanced privacy. The standard requires devices to work offline, using WiFi to connect to our smart speaker or our smartphone; So Matter-certified devices will be more powerful and will perform more functions locally, without the need to connect to an external server. This may be why it takes Google a little longer to adapt to Matter, as Nest devices and Google Assistant use more Google servers.

Amazon is making an important leap

The one who seems best prepared to jump into the material is Amazon. The company announced an ambitious plan for Alexa to achieve compatibility with Matter this year, starting with Echo devices.

Amazon claims that at least 17 Echo devices will be Matter compatible by next December, although it will be a partial update. It will only be compatible with Android mobile phones and with three types of smart devices: light bulbs, switches and sockets. iPhone support and more types of home devices will be added next year.

Rarely have so many giants come together in the history of the tech industry for a common purpose, so the arrival of Matter has the potential to completely change the IoT landscape forever.

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