Matter is a new communication standard, which was originally started by Amazon, Google, Apple and the Zigbee Alliance as CHIP (“Project Connected Home over IP”). During the development process CHIP was renamed to MATTER and the Zigbee Alliance changed its name to CSA (“Connectivity Standards Alliance”). Since then, a lot of other organizations of the smart home and semiconductor industry joined the Matter project.

The goal of Matter Standard is to improve the interoperability and compatibility between different products and smart home systems to reduce the complexity in smart home for the end users. The Matter standard is not based on one specific network protocol like WiFi or Zigbee. Matter can work with WiFi, Thread, Zigbee, Bluetooth, Z-Wave etc. For each network protocol, there are different ways to integrate the devices into a Matter network. For WiFi and Thread, each single device is certified and can be added individually to the Matter smart home. For Zigbee, Bluetooth or Z-Wave, the gateways are generally certified. For example, after adding a certified Matter Zigbee gateway to a Matter system each single Zigbee device of the Zigbee gateway can now be controlled in the Matter smart home system.

Please be aware that Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, and other smart home systems may require a smart speaker or a hub even for adding Matter over WiFi devices.
The LEDVANCE SMART+ App does not require any gateway or hub to add Matter over WiFi devices. Here, the Matter over WiFi devices can be connected directly to the WiFi access point. For Matter over Thread devices, a speaker or hub with Thread Border Router is needed.

Besides the interoperability, the main advantages of Matter standard are as follows:
 

• Local connection: All Matter devices can communicate locally with each other. The cloud is optional. However, mostly used for remote control or automation.
• Easy pairing: Each Matter device has its own QR-Code or 11- or 21-digits code, which needs to be entered during the pairing process.
• Multi-Admin: Matter products can be parallelly used in different systems, so called “Matter fabrics”.
• Firmware updates: Firmware updates can be uploaded by manufacturers on decentralized update servers. These servers can be accessed by any Matter system to get the latest firmware updates. It is not mandatory to use the manufacturer’s app for firmware updates. Please note that this feature is still under development in most of the Matter systems and currently not available.