Matter Smart Home Standard to Play Nice With Robot Vacuums, Air Purifiers, More

pcmag.com:

One of the biggest problems with owning a smart home has always been compatibility: confirming this device will talk to that gadget. Matter promised to solve this once and for all; you could buy any device from any manufacturer and know it'd work with all your existing devices. It's been slow going, but the latest version of Matter—unveiled today—should bring cross-compatibility to more devices in your home.

Matter 1.2 adds nine new device categories to the mix. Soon (if and when manufacturers embrace Matter 1.2), you'll be able to buy refrigerators, air conditioners, dishwashers, washing machines, robot vacuums, smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, air quality sensors, air purifiers, and fans that are Matter-compliant. But what you can do through the Matter spec is limited right now.

For instance, if you bought a Matter-capable robot vacuum, you could potentially use the Google Home app (as opposed to the robot vacuum's app) to see and control basic functions like remote start and progress notifications, along with cleaning modes (think dry vacuum versus wet mopping). But you'll still need to turn to the robot vacuum's app for other features like zone controls—at least for now. Future Matter updates could fill in those gaps.

If you're not familiar with Matter, that's not too surprising. In some ways, Matter shouldn't "matter" to the average smart home owner. It's a behind-the-scenes spec device manufacturers can use to enable cross-compatibility. It's up to the gadget maker to incorporate Matter, but doing so has several benefits.

Just as buying a smart home device with the Google Assistant or Alexa ensures your new gadgets will work with your preferred smart speakers, purchasing a Matter-enabled gadget guarantees it will