The Matter protocol, supposed to simplify the connected home by allowing all the objects in a home to communicate with each other, was undoubtedly one of the stars of CES 2023 in Las Vegas. The beginning of the explosion for this market?
Matter, Matter, Matter… In the aisles of CES in Las Vegas, the new standard dedicated to the connected home is everywhere. It’s not really a surprise, Numerama anticipated a rise in power of Matter during CES several days before the start of the show. However, what was impossible to predict was what form this explosion would take. A few hours before our departure from Las Vegas, we still have several doubts about the various strategies of the manufacturers.
The Matter label on the boxes, the novelty of 2023
What will we remember from Matter at CES 2023? Apart from his presence on all the stands, not much. As we wrote in November, a few days after the official launch of Matter, it will take several years for the standard to really become one. The fault of manufacturers who are not always ready to question themselves, as well as a particularly delicate adaptation phase.
In Las Vegas, where we could have hoped that all the brands specializing in home automation would announce to switch their ecosystems to Matter, few are those to make this promise. There was the Chinese manufacturer SwitchBot, which announced an update to its hub to convert existing devices to Matter, but the reality is that the vast majority of its existing catalog will be excluded from the protocol at launch (including the SwitchBot Bot, its most popular product). The fault of several technical incompatibilities, which will probably push SwitchBot to launch new versions of its products with integrated Matter, without a connection hub, in the future.
Updates to existing devices is a point that really worries. The German specialist Eve, who has everything to gain with Matter (it only supports Apple today and will open up to Google, Amazon and Samsung thanks to the standard), had promised that its devices would switch to Matter in December. In reality, it just released a public beta. We will have to wait several more months for Matter to be available to everyone, and the worst is that Eve is undoubtedly the best student in terms of the connected home.
With other manufacturers, updates to Matter are still pending and are not guaranteed (Philips Lighting, which manages Wiz bulbs, has still not published the list of its bulbs that will be entitled to Matter and does not give any date).
Many of the brands exhibiting at CES seem to want to make Matter with a connection bridge, which is however not the initial promise (an accessory can directly support Matter thanks to Wi-Fi or Thread, to eliminate hubs and free space on the power strip next to your Internet box). Most brands with big Matter logos on their stands are there to launch new products, often light bulbs or sockets, not to announce a strategy or devices that really exploit the capabilities of the standard.
New customers will likely have a lot more choice in 2023 than in 2022, but others will likely still have to juggle different ecosystems.
There was still some good for Matter at CES
Fortunately, among the hundreds of Matter products on display at CES 2023, there were still a few pearls.
At the French manufacturer Nanoleaf for example, there are two good news. The first is that its existing products will soon be compatible with Matter right out of the box, the second is the arrival of new product categories that were not possible before. Nanoleaf, which has only been doing lighting until now, will launch smart switches to control the whole house. Thanks to Matter, they will be able to interact with devices from other brands. We saw a similar concept with the Mui Board, a connected shelf capable of controlling Matter light bulbs or televisions in your home.
The giants were also able to make announcements. Amazon, for example, announced the deployment of Matter on its speakers in the spring (it is behind Apple and Google who have already gone through it). Samsung will launch an application to model its house in 3D and control its devices more easily. He could have done it earlier, but that would have forced him to settle for devices compatible with his own ecosystem. Matter opens a lot of doors for him.
In gadget heaven, the connected home was everywhere in 2023… but will not make an impression despite it. Even with a lot of appetite for home automation, no product was truly revolutionary at CES. Let’s hope this is just a cautious start, before the real explosion later in the year.
