Taking Matter(s) into your own hands

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NXP’s vision of an intelligent or autonomous home

emphasised. “The cost of energy is quite high, but I’m [from a consumer perspective] not willing to get uncomfortably hot or cold because of the cost of energy.” Sujata Neidig, Marketing Director and Neal Kondel, Director of Product Marketing and Management at NXP Semiconductor told me they saw the smart home shifting into the “intelligent or autonomous home”, reflecting an evolution. Although they didn’t comment on this more specifically, this could be because ‘smart home’ as a term has been rolled out to refer to products like a lightbulb whose colours can be changed using an app – and while this is interesting in its own right, it doesn’t sufficiently encapsulate the lofty ambitions of NXP (a founding CSA member) and other companies who are seeing the transformative value in Matter. Discussing the autonomous home in terms of an evolution or step up from the smart home, they told me that these homes aren’t flashy for the sake of being flashy – they can provide integral support

one able to let you know your energy usage and react accordingly. It also shows how smart home devices are reactive to what’s going on in the world around us. The European Commission, which publishes a biannual review into energy prices and costs, concluded in its 2023 edition that “taking a closer look at energy expenditures for households has become increasingly important in the last two years,” [5] registering the spike in energy prices from 2020-22 that was caused by Russia invading Ukraine. The same report acknowledged that although electricity is regarded as a basic good and therefore it must be paid for, “investment in energy efficient appliances and lighting help to save electricity”. [5] It is reasonable to assume that if smart home devices can help monitor and reduce energy usage, then they are very attractive to the energy-conscious end user. “You can start to see that energy management as an app or a feature in your smart home is critical,” LaPre