Matter (formerly known as Project Connected Home over IP) is an open smart home protocol that is being developed by a working group consisting of Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance. The goal of Matter is to create a common language that smart home devices can use to communicate with each other and with smart home hubs, so that consumers can more easily set up and control their smart home devices.
As a protocol, Matter is designed to be backwards compatible, meaning that it is intended to work with existing smart home devices that use different protocols. This is achieved through the use of gateways and bridges, which act as intermediaries between devices that use different protocols and the Matter network. For example, a device that uses the Zigbee protocol could communicate with a Matter-compatible smart home hub through a Zigbee-Matter gateway or bridge.
One of the main benefits of backwards compatibility is that it allows consumers to continue using their existing smart home devices even if they switch to a different smart home platform or hub that uses the Matter protocol. This can be particularly useful for consumers who have invested in a large number of smart home devices and do not want to have to replace them all in order to switch to a different platform.
In addition to being backwards compatible with other smart home protocols, Matter is also designed to be forward compatible, meaning that it is intended to work with new smart home devices that are developed in the future. This is achieved through the use of open standards and a modular architecture, which allows new features and capabilities to be added to the protocol over time without breaking compatibility with existing devices.
As an example of how Matter is backwards compatible, consider the scenario where a consumer has a smart home hub that uses the Matter protocol and a smart light bulb that uses the Zigbee protocol. In order to allow the smart light bulb to communicate with the Matter-compatible smart home hub, a Zigbee-Matter gateway or bridge would be used.
The gateway or bridge acts as an intermediary between the two devices, translating the commands and data from the Matter protocol into a form that the Zigbee-based light bulb can understand, and vice versa. This allows the consumer to control the light bulb using the Matter-compatible smart home hub, even though the light bulb uses a different protocol.
In this way, Matter is able to work with a wide range of existing smart home devices that use different protocols, making it easier for consumers to set up and control their smart home systems. This is especially useful for consumers who have invested in a large number of smart home devices and do not want to have to replace them all in order to switch to a different smart home platform or hub that uses the Matter protocol.
Multi-admin foundational feature in Matter
To reach all of the above. Matter uses multi-admin.
Multi-admin allows users to connect different eco systems to Matter. Locally and secure.
Users can choose which devices they share with which systems on an individual level.
Overall, the goal of Matter is to create a more interoperable and user-friendly smart home ecosystem, where consumers can easily set up and control a wide range of devices from different manufacturers using a single smart home hub or platform. By being backwards and forward compatible, Matter is intended to help achieve this goal and make it easier for consumers to build and manage their own smart home systems.