'Matter' Smart Home Interoperability Rollout Continues With Samsung, Google
Samsung and Google are taking smart home interoperability to the next level, thanks to the new Matter 1.0 connectivity standard.
Galaxy phone and tablet users will soon be able to onboard Matter-compatible devices to the SmartThings and Google Home ecosystems.
Released earlier this month by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), Matter allows web-connected devices from different manufacturers to work with each other securely.
Unless your smart home is kitted out with one brand and one brand only—Amazon, Apple, Google, etc.—linking devices and accounts is a multi-step headache that doesn't always work. Enter Matter, which promises to help manufacturers more easily build devices compatible with various platforms, regardless of its maker.
"With the launch of Matter, we understand there will be new expectations, when it comes to smart home connectivity," Matthew McCullough, VP of Android Developer product management at Google, said in a statement. "We are proud to partner with Samsung Electronics to offer new and existing smart home users their first glimpse into what the future of the smart home looks like and the ease of use that comes with it."
By embracing Matter 1.0 in the coming weeks, Google and Samsung will allow folks to seamlessly find, connect, and control devices through the SmartThings or Google Home apps on Android. Moving forward, users can choose to onboard Google Home devices to the SmartThings app, or vice versa. No more manually adding each device one at a time or trying to remember which ecosystem was first used to set things up.
"Providing users with greater flexibility through this new multi-admin feature is a natural progression in our evolution as partners," according to Jaeyeon Jung, corporate VP
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