The Connectivity Standards Alliance Broadens Matter's Horizon with Nine New Device Categories

The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) has announced a new revision to the cross-vendor Matter Internet of Things (IoT) communications standard, Matter 1.2 — bringing with it nine new device types, including robotic vacuums and smoke alarms.

"The Alliance is excited to share that the second update to Matter, version 1.2, is now available for device makers and platforms to build into their products," a CSA spokesperson says of the organization's latest release. "It is packed with nine new device types, revisions, and additions to existing categories, core improvements to the specification and SDK, and certification and testing tools. The Matter 1.2 certification program is now open and members expect to bring these enhancements and new device types to market later this year and into 2024 and beyond."

Originally unveiled as Project Connected Home over IP in 2019, Matter is a cross-vendor royalty-free smart home connectivity standard created by Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung, and what was known at the time as the ZigBee Alliance. Since the release of the ratified Matter 1.0 standard last year, it has seen growing adoption from both the CSA's founding members and those outwith the group — promising to improve the user experience by reducing fragmentation and incompatibilities.

Part of a self-imposed roadmap to release two new revisions each year, and following on from April's incremental 1.1 update, Matter 1.2 adds support for nine new device types into the ecosystem: refrigerators, room air conditioners, dishwashers, laundry washers, smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, air quality sensors, air purifiers, fans, and robotic vacuums and mops — the latter meaning SwitchBot can now deliver on its promised Matter support for the upcoming S10 automated robotic vacuum.

The new standard also brings with it enhancements for smart door locks and latches, a hierarchical composition for devices and endpoints to better represent real-world connectivity layouts, semantic tagging, and generic operational state descriptions, plus changes to the testing and certification program which the CSA claims will make it quicker for vendors to bring Matter-compatible devices to market.

The Matter 1.2 standard is now available to download from the CSA website; those interested in experimenting with Matter should also take a look at our Make it Matter! contest, in partnership with the CSA and Nordic Semiconductor, which has a range of prizes on offer for projects using Matter on the Nordic nRF7002 DK, Nordic nRF5340 DK, or Nordic Thingy:53.