Matter just released its new 1.3 specification for smart home device makers and platforms. This adds new features and device types to the smart home interoperability protocol, which is supported by Amazon, Google, Apple, and other major smart home members in the Connectivity Standards Alliance.
These additions make your smart home more efficient with energy monitoring features and connect more IoT devices to control so all the best smart home devices can work better together in a singular ecosystem.
Core new functions
Before diving into the new devices and features, two major additions to the overall user experience exist. Matter now supports scenes for product makers and smart home platforms to set, read, and activate for devices or rooms. Scenes let you create a desired state for devices, rooms, or your whole home by combining settings such as brightness or color in devices like smart lights that can be triggered with one command.
Meanwhile, Matter controllers can now batch multiple commands into a single message when communicating with Matter devices. This minimizes the delay between the execution of those commands. For example, batched commands can affect multiple devices, so this improvement provides a more synchronized experience without lag or the "popcorn effect" that is common in even the best smart lights.
Energy management
The new Matter 1.3 update introduces new energy reporting capabilities to help you understand and manage energy use, save money, and reduce your carbon footprint. This enables any device type to report actual and estimated measurements in real-time, including instantaneous power, voltage, current, and others, as well as its energy consumption or generation over time.
One of the biggest energy-centric devices this impacts is Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE). This enables Electric Vehicle charging equipment manufacturers to present a more straightforward way to control how and when you juice up your vehicles. It features the ability to manually start or stop charging, adjust the charging rate or specify how many miles of range to be added by a set departure time, leaving the charging station to automatically optimize the charging to happen at the cheapest and lowest carbon times.
New Matter-supported appliance types
Also arriving in Matter 1.3 is support for even more major everyday appliances. The newly supported device types include cooktops, microwaves, ovens, extractor hoods, and laundry dryers. This allows you to control cook times, temperatures, and modes while supporting notifications when a cycle or cook is done.
Additionally, Matter now supports leak and freeze detectors, rain sensors, and controllable water valves to enhance water monitoring, management, and protection in and around your home.
Improved smart home management functionality for media devices
Matter 1.3 also brings many improvements to casting media players and TV functionality. Matter devices can now send notifications to TVs or other devices with screens (for instance, notifying that a robot vacuum is stuck, the laundry is done, etc.). Think push messages and dialog support for new ambient experiences. There are also some entertainment enhancements in casting initialization, expanded control options for TV apps, text and track support, and improved search functionality.
