Matter is a new standard that aims to fix the smart home’s biggest problems: interoperability, reliability, security, and being easy to use. With Matter, your smart lights, smart lock, smart thermostat, and other smart devices will all work with together, easily. All the major smart home platforms are on board — Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings — and so are almost all the big device brands, from Philips Hue and Lutron Caseta to August, Ikea, and TP-Link. If you see the Matter logo on a product, you know it will work with any other Matter-compatible gadget in your home.
The latest gadget from the smart home company is a multi-protocol Matter powerhouse, packing Thread, Zigbee, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and IR control.
The $130 M3 hub was announced at CES and launches today. It’s one of the first Matter controllers from a company not called Amazon, Apple, Google, or Samsung.
I’ve been testing it for the last week and have a review coming soon.
If you’re planning a truly smart home, then you’re going to need a smart hub. Here’s what you need to know.
When The Verge’s smart home reporter got the chance to design her kitchen, she went all in on smart connected appliances.
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Amazon’s new control panel makes using an Alexa-powered smart home as easy as flipping a light switch (only better, trust me).
Eagle-eyed smart home enthusiasts have tracked down the as-yet unavailable Alexa smart home control panel.
One Reddit user found the Echo Hub at Best Buy last week, but the clerk sent him away hubless. Another recently saw a big marketing display at Lowe’s complete with an empty cage where an Echo Hub should be.
Amazon said the Hub would ship at the end of 2023. It’s February 2024 and we’re still waiting. But perhaps not for much longer ...
European-based Nuki is adding remote access via Thread to its newest smart locks, allowing control away from home.
Previously, and with most other smart locks, this was only possible over WiFi, requiring a dedicated bridge or regularly replacing your lock’s batteries (Wi-Fi is very power-hungry).
Thread is designed to be more stable and more efficient than Wi-Fi for battery-powered devices. Nuki says Thread remote access works with Apple Home and Home Assistant at launch via a Thread-enabled Matter controller. The company plans to bring its retrofit locks to the US later this year.
The $50 Eve Energy Outlet launched this week, and as a Matter-over-Thread device, is compatible with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple Home, and more.
But, as Matter doesn’t support energy monitoring, you can only access its energy features through Eve’s iOS app or, if you’re an Android user, the Samsung SmartThings app. (You’d also need a SmartThings Matter Controller).
Yep, folks. We are still waiting on Matter to make everything easier.
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With customizable icons and an intuitive click wheel, the Linxura solves a big problem with smart buttons. But it needs to dial up its integrations before it’s worth your money.
From map views and smart TVs to smart buttons and generative AI, controlling your smart home is getting simpler and smarter — and less dependent on your smartphone.
With a capacitive touch interface built into a piece of wood, the Mui Board 2 is a smart home hub with a touch of whimsy.
The new version adds support for Matter and can control your smart lights, locks, thermostats, and music as well as monitor your home’s energy use. You can write messages on it, and there’s a speaker and microphone for voice control.
The Mui Board has been about to launch since 2019, but the company says it’s coming for real this time. You can preorder it on Kickstarter for $499, with delivery in December 2024.
At LG’s CES press conference, Erik Kay of Google came onstage to say that “LG TVs will act as hubs for Google Home, so you can easily set up and control any Matter device, see and control LG, Google, and Google Home devices right from the TV or ThinQ app.”
This means that LG TVs will act as Matter controllers for Google Home, giving you another option beyond a Google Nest Hub, Nest Mini, or Nest Wifi to use Matter devices with Google Home.
Then queue up this two-hour interview with Daniel Moneta in your podcast app.
Moneta, who has worked for Google Home and Samsung SmartThings, is the chair of the CSA’s Marketing and Product group. So it’s his job to explain how Matter works, and he’s very good at it. He turned the hardened HomeTech.fm hosts into true believers following this interview.
As I’ve discussed, Matter has a lot of problems, but it’s encouraging to hear how they are working on solving them.
From color-changing lights to gadgets that’ll take care of dinner for you and your pets, here are some of our favorite smart home gifts.
The new smart home standard finally arrived this year. But poor implementation, significant backpedaling, and glacial progress have left it broken.
