Taking Matter(s) into your own hands

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“It had some similarities to what Zigbee was then, but for their architectural purposes they wanted the stack to be IP-based, which is what the [Google] Nest was at the time,” he said. Zigbee is a wireless mesh networking standard based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, created by the CSA and officially launched in 2004. The thought process behind the standard was to create a low-powered mesh network covering devices within 10-100 metres that was more cost-effective than operating on Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. It demonstrated, in practice, the value of having a single standard on which devices could operate. The founding members of the then-named Zigbee Alliance included Philips, Honeywell, and Samsung, “bounded in the sense of aiming to create a secure, reliable, and low-power wireless technology suited for a wide range of devices … including smart home devices”. [3] Widening this outlook means looking at the common challenges IoT companies were facing at the time, notably interoperability – or a lack thereof. The explosion in smart home devices, perhaps best represented by smart speakers and their growth – which in 2024 were estimated to be owned by almost half of 45–54-year-olds [4] – was cause for excitement, as lightbulbs that could be turned on using an app or activating a speaker using your voice were coming onto the market. However, without a standard to facilitate communication between all of these devices, consumers not only had to buy devices from different brands to build their smart home ecosystem (AKA ‘a fabric’ in industry

from the perspective of the Connectivity Standards Alliance, but also from their members’ perspectives, which includes smart home device manufacturers and module vendors. One key takeaway I learned was that Matter exemplified a project where companies, even if they were direct competitors in the market [2], were willing to put aside any differences to work collaboratively on a standard that is anticipated to positively impact the development of the smart home. THE HISTORY OF MATTER The Matter standard was created by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) which can be traced back to 2019. In December 2019, then-named Zigbee Alliance, which changed its name to CSA in 2021, along with its member companies Amazon, Apple, Google, and Samsung, went public with the Connected Home over IP (‘CHIP’) project. This would be renamed to Matter in 2021, along with the CSA. Matter is notable for the mission it champions in addressing interoperability among smart home devices but also for the collective efforts of the CSA’s member companies in working to improve the standard in spite of being competing organisations, a dynamic referred to as ‘coopetition’, a blend of competition and collaboration. Matter is interesting for providing “a unique example of platform ecosystem coordination and collaboration”. [2] According to Chris LaPre, Head of Technology at CSA, behind the scenes, its member companies wanted to work on an Internet protocol (IP)-based stack and approached the CSA.