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Samsung speeds up smart home setup with 'Matter Easy Pair'
It lets you find and connect to nearby Matter devices easily
After announcing a new SmartThings hub for easy smart home management at CES, Samsung is now rolling out a new feature on its devices to help users easily find and connect to nearby Matter-compatible devices. The feature, called 'Matter Easy Pair,' is rolling out as an update to the Nearby Device Scanning feature on Samsung Galaxy devices.
Matter arrives on Google products to make your smart home even better
Google announced that its Nest and Android devices are now compatible with Matter, which makes connecting your smart home devices easier.
Last month, the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) held a launch event for Matter, celebrating the alliance of companies over a single standard for smart home products. While it's still very early days for Matter, companies have rallied together, and at the time of the announcement, 190 products were certified or are in the process of certification. Google has also shown support and, today, announced that going forward, Matter will be available on Nest and Android devices.
Matter officially launches with strong support from Amazon, Samsung, Philips, and others
Today, Matter had its official launch, sharing details of its partners and the products coming down the pipeline in the near future.
Today, the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) held a Matter launch event in Amsterdam to showcase partners and their products. The specification for Matter 1.0 was published at the top of last month, and now, partners have finally come together to show support. While devices and products were shown off at the event from partners, CSA stated that 190 products are certified or are in the certification process.
Samsung SmartThings and Google Home will offer seamless Matter device interoperability
Samsung has partnered with Google to offer users seamless Matter device interoperability between the SmartThings and Google Home platforms.
Samsung, Google, and over 170 different brands are gearing up to adopt the Matter smart home standard later this year. Although the new standard already promises seamless interoperability between hardware from various manufacturers, Google and Samsung are taking things a step further by offering interoperability between their smart home software platforms. Today, the companies announced an expanded partnership that will allow Galaxy smartphone and tablet users to easily onboard Matter-enabled devices on both the SmartThings and Google Home ecosystems and control them seamlessly through either app.
Google's flagship smart home display, the Nest Hub Max, offers a useful feature that lets you extend the effective range of a few other Nest products. However, Google will drop support for this feature with an upcoming update for the smart display.
At its I/O developer conference last year, Google announced it would soon bring Matter support to Android and Nest smart home devices. However, the company did not share a definite timeline for the rollout. At this year's Google I/O, the company finally confirmed that Android 13 would provide support for Matter-enabled devices. Now that Android 13 has finally rolled out on the stable channel, Google seems to have started rolling out Matter device controls to some Android users.For the unaware, Matter is a new universal smart home standard that aims to offer interoperability between smart home devices from various OEMs, including Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, Philips, and more. With Matter support, smart home devices from these manufacturers would work together seamlessly, allowing users to control connected devices using a single app. Most of these OEMs plan to offer Matter support by the end of this year, but Google has reportedly started rolling out Matter device controls (via Android Police) to some users through Google Play Services.
What is Matter, and why the new smart home standard should matter to you
Matter is supposed to save the smart home from a mess of ecosystems and differing standards. It's one of those game changing moments.
Ecosystem lock-ins aren't always bad, but when it comes to smart homes, the landscape is messy. Currently, there are different standards, countless brands, and even platform plays like Alexa, Google Home, and HomeKit. It seems everyone wants a piece of your home, but rarely does all this tech play nicely together.
New Eve Motion gets a light sensor and is ready for Matter
The Eve Motion is a new IPX3 rated motion and light sensor with Thread support, so it's HomeKit ready now, and Matter ready tomorrow.
Eve, formerly part of Elgato, has a brand new motion sensor available from today. The Eve Motion costs just $40, doesn't require recharging, has some nifty new features, and, most of all, is ready for the future.
Apple announces HomeKit integration with new Matter smart home standard
Hell freezes over? Perhaps, as it seems Apple has decided to join the Matter party by contributing HomeKit as a founder for the new standard.
The alternative headline is perhaps that hell has frozen over? It sure feels like it, as Apple has dropped the news at WWDC it is actually contributing to the new collaborative Matter smart home standard. A few weeks ago at Google I/O we heard plenty from Google about the new standard launching later this year. We weren't necessarily expecting to hear Apple joining the party. After all, Apple is very good at doing its own thing.
Samsung SmartThings starts testing for Matter with a new partner program
Samsung is preparing for Matter to launch in late 2022 with a new partner program to test devices through its SmartThings platform.
At Google I/O, there was a sizeable focus on smart home, and in particular, Matter. The upcoming standard developed between Google and a range of partner manufacturers in the space is set to officially launch in the latter stages of 2022. But preparations for it are well underway, and that includes at Samsung. SmartThings is getting Matter-ready and Samsung is announcing its partner early access program to get the ball rolling.
Google is extending Fast Pair to Android TVs, Chromebooks, and Matter devices
Google has announced that it will soon extend Fast Pair support to Android TV and Google TV devices, Chromebooks, and Matter-enabled devices.
At its annual I/O developer conference last year, Google announced a bunch of upcoming features. While some of the features that Google announced during the event have already rolled out to users, the company is yet to extend Fast Pair support to more device types. However, during the ongoing CES 2022 trade show, Google has announced that it will add Fast Pair support for more devices, including Android TVs, Chromebooks, and Matter-enabled devices, in the coming months.
Samsung announces Matter support on SmartThings IoT platform
Following the footsteps of Google and Apple, Samsung has announced support for the Matter standard for its SmartThings IoT platform.
Following the footsteps of Google and Apple, Samsung has announced support for the Matter standard for its SmartThings IoT platform.
Google introduces new Developer Center and SDKs at Smart Home Developer Summit, clarifies GMS requirement for Matter support
Google has introduced a new Smart Home Developer Centre and new SDKs for Matter, the smart home standard. Read on to know more!
Smart homes are the future, and the future is inching closer with every passing day. Earlier this year at Google I/O, Google had announced Matter, a universal standard for smart home devices to encourage interoperability and seamless co-existence between them. Several internet giants like Google, Amazon, Apple, and Samsung have worked together on Matter, and Matter is also supported by both Android and Google Nest devices. Today, at the Smart Home Developer Summit, Google has announced several resources in the form of the Google Home Developer Center, the new Google Home Device SDK for Matter, and the new Google Home Mobile SDK. Google is also expanding its Google Home branding and introducing Suggested Routines to developers.