Taking Matter(s) into your own hands

agreeing on what the socket would look like, and you would have to make five different versions of the same light bulb just to go into five different sockets.” For companies like Silicon Labs, who were involved from the beginning, a standard like Matter was recognised for building on the foundations provided by the work that had been invested to make wireless signals work properly – at least, according to Rob Alexander, Principal Product Manager. Alexander is also on the board of directors at the CSA. “I was involved in Zigbee for 20 years and that was trying to make wireless signals work for the longest time, at a very basic level, and then at a higher level, trying to make the networking work for an embedded device,” he explained. “At the time, these devices were not capable of running IP or standard routing protocols … It became a very well-known problem, and Z-Wave and Zigbee solved it, even Bluetooth mesh solved it. “I WAS INVOLVED IN ZIGBEE FOR 20 YEARS AND THAT WAS TRYING TO MAKE WIRELESS SIGNALS WORK FOR THE LONGEST TIME, AT A VERY BASIC LEVEL, AND THEN AT A HIGHER LEVEL, TRYING TO MAKE THE NETWORKING WORK FOR AN EMBEDDED DEVICE"

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Rob Alexander, Principal Product Manager, Silicon Labs

early experience of using the Internet.

“I could see all the different IoT companies were working on similar problems, but in slightly different ways … everyone had their own spin on it, reminding me of the early days of networking,” he explained. “Back in the 1990s, we came together to develop the Internet and that gave us the ability to have interoperability, no matter which product you had and from which company. “I could see the same thing happening with Matter. Now more than 700 companies are coming together to solve these problems.” Pre-Matter, said Hanna, “every company had its own proprietary way of building IoT. Imagine that if you’re going to build an IoT-controlled light bulb it has to support five or six different protocols because every operator would have their own way of doing things.

“In essence, the standards evolved to

“It’s like making a light bulb before