Amazon recently revealed plans to release Matter on select Echo devices in December. Matter is a communication protocol created by over 200 companies to unify smart home standards under his one banner.
There are currently multiple wireless communication protocols used by smart home devices. We used Zigbee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, but none of these standards became the dominant wireless protocol for smart home devices. Worse, they don’t communicate well (or at all) with each other.
The Matter protocol is supposed to give owners of smart home devices a plug-and-use experience that currently seems far-fetched. This open source connectivity standard leverages multiple technologies such as Thread, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Ethernet to allow smart home devices to easily communicate with each other locally.
Apparently, Zigbee, Philips Hue, Ecobee, iRobot, Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung. That’s one reason Matter is likely to become the new wireless standard for smart home devices.
Having said that, Amazon has been working to make Alexa compatible with Matter for some time, but last week, The US giant has announced that the first batch of Echo devices will receive an update that introduces a new protocol.
- 5th generation. Echo Dot and Echo Dot with Clock
- 4th generation. Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Dot with Clock
- 3rd Gen Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Dot with Clock
- 2nd generation Echo Show 5 and Echo Show 8
- 3rd generation echo show 10
- Echo Show 5 and Echo Show 8
- echo studio
- echo input
- echo flex
- echo plus v2
Thread wasn’t included in the initial update, but Amazon confirms support for iOS, Thread, and other Echo devices will begin in 2023.
