Apple and Google-backed smart home standard delayed until fall

The smart home standard Matter, supported by Amazon, Apple and Google, among others, will no longer appear in the first half of 2022. Instead, devices will only come with updates for Matter support in the fall of this year.

The Connectivity Standards Alliance says need more time to improve code quality and stability. Therefore, the testing and validation phases of Matter are being extended and the public release of Matter 1.0 is being delayed by ‘several months’. The CSA says that due to this delay, there will be more devices that support Matter at release.

Part of the extended testing and validation phase, is an additional ninth testing event in the spring. The final step in the phase is the Matter Specification Validation Event, where the CSA will validate Matter with 130 devices from more than 50 companies. According to the CSA, this step is crucial in certifying those products and validating the Matter standard.

After that Specification Validation Event, Matter can be finalized, requiring the 1.0 version to be ready by the fall. After that, companies can officially validate their devices for Matter. The CSA therefore expects manufacturers to announce Matter products and updates around that time.

It’s not the first time Matter has been delayed. For example, when announcing the name change from Project CHIP to Matter, the CSA said the first products would be released in late 2021; later this became the first half of 2022. Matter is a smart home standard that should allow devices from different manufacturers to work together, as long as they support Matter. In addition to the companies mentioned, parties such as SmartThings, The Zigbee Alliance, IKEA and Signify are also working on Matter.