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Comment by jakewins | Hacker News Reader

> Matter is the reliable IoT compatibility standard that drives category growth by simplifying the purchasing process, expanding the smart home category to more retailers, and lowering operational costs. [1]

In case anyone was wondering what Matter is.

[1] https://csa-iot.org/all-solutions/matter/

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The pitch for consumers:

> Matter is the seal of approval that says smart devices work reliably together—taking the guesswork out of the purchasing process. That trust allows you to choose from a wider range of the brands you love, and brings you the comfort of a secure and seamless connected home.

Which is indeed a major pain point with IoT so far: purchasing things that work together (instead of only cooperating in their own ecosystem and with Alexa). Of course that's more or less what HomeAssistant was already trying to do, but Matter might make this more appealing for "casual" users.

I thought zwave certification pretty much solved it? There are of course issues with higher cost, etc. but I thought zwave was the approved cooperating option and zigbee is the yolo option.

The ZigBee alliance next gen protocol is what is nowadays branded as Matter. So it is certification but also improvements on the stack. Which make sense to simplify things.

With zwave, you can't actually implement the spec yourself, you have to buy little bits of hardware from the only company selling them. That, of course, is pretty good for compatibility. Zigbee is just a spec, but no one actually follows it properly. Now the next version of Zigbee is rebranding as matter and hoping that this time everyone follows the spec. I'm assuming through some sort of certification program, which, as cynical as I am, may actually work.

Well, there's also the fact that Apple, Amazon, And Alphabet have said they'll support Matter.

So following that spec suddenly (pardon the pun) matters a lot. I'm sure certification plays a role, but don't underestimate "works with what a huge group of people have ready access to".

Suddenly, compliance becomes self-interest.

Yeah, but it's not _that_ useful to me if only giant mega-corps implement it. I want to buy stuff from Zooz and Inovelli, et all.

Yeah, but if the big three support it then that gives it a lot of gravity. There are a lot of people who will be much more likely to buy smart products if they can be controlled by their Alexa/Nest/Echo. Anyone who doesn't support it could be sacrificing a lot of potential customers.

Is it backwards-compatible with Zigbee, or do I have to buy everything all over again?

on top of what other commenters have said, Matter is IP based and supports Wi-Fi in addition to Thread as well as Bluetooth for initial pairing. With Matter devices should have more flexibility with how they connect physically and the network should be able to mesh with the existing networking in the house.

Do any of these standards give confidence on how much functionality will work when on an isolated network?

I'm never sure what will break if i don't give it internet access :/

Matter is supposed to be a local IP protocol. Explicitly does not specify a cloud protocol. But it is an IP protocol and many devices that interact with a network may expect internet access and not work without (eg hubs and voice assistants). YMMV on controlling matter without such devices.

Speaking for myself not my employer.

Zigbee and zwave products basically guarantee this, but I really hope the matter logo makes it clear what required a cloud.

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