Even the best smart speakers can be made better – and with Matter making it easier for different firms' smart home tech to interact with each other, Matter upgrades are well worth having. Amazon has already upgraded many of its existing smart speakers to support Matter, and it's now published a new Alexa update that brings the tech to older Echo devices too.
This new update is relevant to two generations in particular: the second generation Echo, Echo Plus, and Echo Dot, which can now be used as Matter controllers, and the Echo 4th Generation, which can now be configured as a Thread border router. That adds to its existing support for Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Bluetooth Low Energy Mesh and plain old Matter: Thread is a smart home connection just like Zigbee or Bluetooth LE Mesh, so Matter Over Thread means the 4th Generation Echo can use the Matter protocol via Thread networking. It's simpler than that sounds, I promise.
