Why Smart Homes Finally Just Work (Thanks to Matter) - DTNS Weekend

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2:44Welcome to the Daily Tech News Show weekend edition, gratefully provided to you and thanks for your support of this show. And we have got a good episode for you today that's going to give you hope for your smart home. Samsung and Ikea are partnering on smart home devices thanks to the Matter and Thread standard. But there's far more interoperability coming because of those standards. And if you're like, yeah, I keep hearing about Matter and Thread and like I keep getting confused with Instagram's threads and what is it and why do I need a border router? Well, thank goodness we asked Richard Gunther to join us to help us understand what's going on.

3:20Richard, thank you for being here. Greetings. Glad to join you to talk about this standards soup we're in. Yes, it's a delicious stew of standards. But it's going to make things simpler once we work through it. Let's start with matter. What is matter versus thread? Let's talk about those two. Yeah, so I joke about a soup of standards. In the smart home industries, there have been so many different technologies in use over the years. And for a long time, the joke was, well, the thing that we need to fix the problem with all these standards is to make another standard. Yeah, it's a classic XKCD comic in the making right there.

4:03Right, right. So, you know, you had stuff that people are used to hearing if they're thinking smart wave like Z-Wave or smart home like Z-Wave and Bluetooth. And all join was one of those things way back when. Oh, man, that takes me back. Yeah, that crashed and burned. But you had all this stuff that just wasn't doing everything that we needed it to do. And then you have Google and Apple and Amazon getting in the game and they kind of changed smart home. But they created these silos where their stuff only worked with their stuff unless you happened to find a gadget that was certified to work with all three.

4:40And that wasn't all that common. So way back in the before times in 2019, those three got together with some other folks in the industry and said, we got to fix this. Like we need to make stuff work and came up with this thing called Project Connected Home over IP. just rolls off the tongue, right? Actually, I think this was a backronym. I think they came into this name because they had the acronym CHIP. And they said, all right, we'll call this CHIP. Now, how are you going to get words that mean that? But in any event, they spent a long time working on this. And I say the before times intentionally, because when a lot of the work when this was being done was during COVID and the 2021, 2022 time period, which slowed things down a little bit.

5:31Everyone having to get used to working remotely and not having access to physical devices when they were working, that all worked out in this finally launched matter, the standard that they came out with in 2022. And the, The idea is basically to get all of your devices to work to one standard so that you can know if you buy something with a matter symbol on it at the store that it's going to work with your other matter devices. And the idea is eventually all the devices you buy would be matter. So you won't even really have to think about it. But matter is the application layer, right? Matter is allowing my Philips smart bulb to talk to my Amazon hub and also talk to my electrical outlet or my garage door opener.

6:28It's them being able to understand each other. Yep. It basically lays out the language. I'm a device. I can do these things. I understand these attributes, stuff like that. So you and I speak English. Yeah. So we can both understand each other. Right. But how do we talk is the next part of this. Right. You still need a communication channel, right? And for smart home devices, it has been wireless. It's been stuff like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. And so, you know, again, all of these different devices used different mechanisms for talking with each other. And one of the advantages of Matter is that it's IP-based.

7:11and that means that it can work over Wi-Fi, which is good if you just want your stuff on Wi-Fi or it can work on, and this is kind of another standard or a protocol that was jointly created by the industry called Thread. And when I say a protocol, I mean, it's kind of like the rules around how you communicate and what radio you use to communicate with each other and stuff like that. So matter devices can either work on Wi-Fi. And so you'll even see on boxes for devices, matter over Wi-Fi or matter over thread. So why thread? Why do we need thread? If we have Wi-Fi, why do you want something else?

7:51If you have a lot of smart home devices, you probably don't want them gumming up your Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi wasn't really designed for the short bursts of information that these devices send and receive. and doesn't necessarily have the robustness that these devices require. And if you're on an older Wi-Fi network, you may hit capacity really fast, especially if it's before Wi-Fi 6. Even Wi-Fi 6, I push the limits sometimes. Absolutely, absolutely. And so Matter, which is based on IPv6, that's the newer IP standard, is going to work on newer routers fairly well, new Wi-Fi routers fairly well. But with Thread, it just gets all that stuff communicating in its own space, and it's not requiring your Wi-Fi.

8:46So you may know of products by Lutron or Philips Hue is another good example of these products where they have these bridges, or sometimes they call them hubs, but really they're bridges that allow you to communicate with your devices through your phone because it has to be on the Wi-Fi to connect with the phone. But they don't talk Wi-Fi to each other. They talk their own language to each other. And that's what Thread does. But since everyone was using their own language, now you'll be able to have all your Thread devices talk to each other directly. So matter was, let's all agree that, you know, English is our second language.

9:29Matter is our second language. We can all understand each other. Thread is, hey, if you're calling me on the phone and getting a busy signal, you can send me a text message and get through faster. I know that's not a perfect analogy, but it kind of gets the idea across. Yeah, and I love that analogy because you just gave an example of the robustness of Thread. Thread is designed to self-correct. So it's meshed, meaning that it's not just one point to one point. It can communicate across devices to other points. So if there's a busy signal, oh, well, I'll go this other path. I'll use text or I'll use my chat window or whatever.

10:09There are multiple ways that you can communicate through this mesh. And if one, let's say, node, one device isn't actually receiving the signal, then it can get sent through another path. And that ensures that your smart home devices are going to talk to each other and really not have to worry about interference and other things that can make working with a smart home problematic at best, maybe. Frustrating, anger-inducing. Yes. All of those things. Spouse anger-inducing. You don't want that. No, definitely not. But and this, because it's a little lower power too, not that it's the first lower power way to do a smartphone, but that helps you with battery operated stuff and things like that, right?

10:59Yeah, absolutely. So because it doesn't require a lot of power, it's great for sensors and cameras and things that aren't always going to have power. Matter just added support for cameras in a version that came out in November. So we should start seeing some Matter-enabled cameras coming up in the next couple of quarters. I'm really excited to see what comes out soon. So one buzzword I think becomes clear to people, or actually three, Matter, Thread, and Matter over Thread, right? We just explained those. You'll also hear border router thrown around a lot, which I think is going to make people go, okay, so I need to buy some other thing.

11:40Let's talk a little bit about what that is. Yeah, I wish they hadn't used this language. I find this term very confusing because you already have a router. And what does that have to do with a border router? And do I have to put it at the edge of my house? No, you don't. Right. Right. Again, if you think of things like Philipu or Lutron Caseta, they have these bridge devices that get their devices that are all talking to each other on their own network bridged into your network at home. And that's what a border router does. A border router is essentially a matter device that plugs in and can act as a bridge for the signals from all your smart home devices to be accessible in the network.

12:30Why do you want that? Well, because that's how you're going to control it from your phone or outside of your home or from a web browser some way. So that's an important aspect of making all this stuff work together. And if you have Thread devices and Wi-Fi devices, you want to make sure that they can talk to each other too. Now, that makes sense to me because Thread is saving me some bandwidth and some power and it's all communicating. But then it needs to go to the Internet to let me know what it's doing. Let me tell it what to do or other things like you said. And I think the thing that will surprise people is they probably have one of these.

13:08They probably have a border router, right? That's exactly right. So over the past several years, manufacturers have been building Matter border routers into their products. So some examples are pretty much all the new HomePods. If you have a HomePod mini or a second generation HomePod, if you have the fourth generation or later Apple TV, if you have any Google Nest hub with a screen on it or Nest Wi-Fi, If you have any of the newer Amazon Echo devices, and by new, I mean like three years or newer. If you have Eero 6 or later, all of those things, smart TVs, Samsung's building it into their TVs and into their refrigerators.

13:52So you probably have a Matter Border router already. I want to tell you it's easy to find out. But it's not, unfortunately. Yeah. It's probably easiest to look at a list of product names that have them than to try to deduce it directly, right? Yes. Unfortunately, unless you happen to be in the Apple ecosystem. So if you use Apple Home, there's a way that you can find out what Matter devices are on your network by looking at your home settings. and it's a list in there where you can see which devices are in fact border routers. Google Home and Amazon's app don't offer similar capabilities. So you really just have to look at the devices themselves.

14:43You could say, okay, well, I have a smart TV. Here it is in my SmartThings app. And if you click that gear icon and see the settings for that, usually there will be something on there that tells you that it is a Matter-enabled hub. And that's what you're looking for there. Business is booming. But you know what really helped? Xero, the accounting platform for small businesses. I used to think unpaid bills were just part of it. Ugh. But batch payments? Wow. Automated accounts payable? Even better. All in one place? That's a big one. And I can keep track from my phone while I get the job done. No bills in sight.

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17:49If you've used Babbel, you would. Babbel's conversation-based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55 % off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com slash ACAST. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash ACAST. Rules and restrictions may apply. Okay, so let's assume I've gotten through all the jargon and I understand like, okay, yeah, I have a Samsung TV or I have a HomePod and now I can just go buy Matter stuff.

18:42I should probably double check, make sure it says Matter compliant, but most things are that are being sold these days. And then I hear that Samsung and Ikea are partnering. And I've just gone through this whole long explanation with Richard and Tom that told me like, I don't have to think about brands anymore. What is the significance of the Samsung Ikea partnership. Yeah, this is pure and simple PR. I mean, there isn't really a whole lot of news here. What Samsung is saying is that they have intentionally gone in and confirmed that their matter-enabled smart things stuff will, in fact, if you have a border router, allow you to use Ikea's matter-enabled devices.

19:30And here's the gray part. Without an Ikea hub. So Ikea sells lots of smart devices. Their newer devices are matter-based. To use those, you needed to have, and I'm going to mess up this pronunciation, an Ikea Deerger hub. And that hub would act like a border router and allow you to see both those Matter devices and Ikea's older Zigbee devices all in one place and be able to connect to them through your network. Well, you don't need to use Ikea's hub for this if they are, in fact, Matter devices that are certified to work with other Matter border routers. And guess what? Samsung sells border devices with border routers.

20:23in them. So SmartThings is going to work with those. The same was true with Zigbee, that if you use SmartThings and had an old SmartThings hub that was Zigbee enabled, it would work with Ikea's Zigbee devices natively without having to use their hub. So this isn't really anything new, but it's a good way of getting their brand in people's mind saying that, hey, you know, you may be thinking that you don't want to buy these Ikea products and Ikea doesn't want that because you don't have an Ikea hub and you don't want to add another hub, but you already have a hub and smart things. We want you using our system.

21:08You could use it with their devices if you want to. Yeah. And they did a few things like adding an Ikea section in the smart things app So that you're reassured that the IKEA bulb is showing up there, which, you know, for newbies, I think is a nice touch. Yeah, no, absolutely. And that's one of the things that's great about SmartThings is that they let you dive actually through the brands that you know. You don't have to go through this convoluted system, but what kind of device is it and how does it communicate? Just tell it, I have a Hue light bulb or I have an IKEA sensor. And it's really good at walking you through that path.

21:51And the fact of the matter is, you go buy one of those$6 IKEA light bulbs, you can use it with Google Home. You can use it with Apple HomeKit. You can use it with Amazon. It just isn't part of the press release that you can do that today. But there's nothing stopping you from using it. And I think to me, that's the, I don't know about you, Richard, but to me, the biggest part of this story is like, oh,$6 smart light bulbs. That's fantastic. Right. $6 smart light bulbs that are compatible with everything. And that hasn't really been the case before. And that's the promise of Matter, is that you buy something that's Matter enabled, you'll be able to, you'll know whether it has that Apple Home logo on it or not, whether it has the Google logo on it or not, if it's Matter compatible, you can use it with Google Home, Apple Home, Amazon's ecosystem, smart things.

22:43No concerns. And you'll be able to use them together with each other. So you could have, for example, your Nest thermostat has a humidity sensor on it, and maybe you want to use it to trigger a manual plug-in humidifier that you bought from another manufacturer that's Matter enabled. All of that is now possible because of matter. Yeah. So, so really the smart home just became not just, it's like, you know, an overnight sensation that's been touring for years. Right. But, but it, it feels like now we're finally to the point where we can tell people like, yeah, smart homes are easy. Now you probably have a border router.

23:21You don't need to know what it is. You can use whatever platform you've been using and just buy stuff. And you know, in 99 % of cases, you're going to be easy. Yeah. It's just going to be able to happen. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and it finally, right. Like we've been talking about this for how many years, Tom? Oh my gosh. So I'm, I'm glad that we're finally here and I will warn people, like if you're hearing people talk about how, oh, matter was a mess, it didn't work and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. At the beginning it was rough. Stuff like this usually takes a couple of years to iron out.

23:56We're now on dot five, one dot five of their current standard. It's much more mature. It's much more stable. I really think it's come of age, and I believe that we'll move forward with nearly every smart home manufacturer targeting this platform now. And if you haven't heard Richard talk about this stuff in the past, hearing you not trash it in any way, I think is really important to emphasize. If there's a weakness Listen, you are not going to be afraid to tell us about it. No, I am not. No, I am not. And I've had plenty of problems with technology over the years that I've talked about on your shows before.

24:36Yeah, yeah. So I think that that is probably the biggest endorsement of a matter that I could think of. Richard, thank you so much for spending the time to chat with us and explain all this. If people want to find your work these days, where do they go? Yeah, I'll tell you, I used to podcast a lot. Not as much anymore, but I do still participate in a digital entertainment podcast at thedigitalmediazone.com. That's called Entertainment 2.0. And I'm occasionally on other people's podcasts like your own. I'm going to be on a Verge podcast next week. So look around for me. Fantastic. Thanks again, Richard.

25:13Thank you very much. And thank you, everybody, for spending a little of your weekend with us. We appreciate it. You can always get the show ad free at DTNS.substack.com or patreon.com slash DTNS. Got lots of bonus stuff for you at those locations as well. Have a great weekend. We'll be back with all the news on Monday.

25:39The DTNS family of podcasts, helping each other understand. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.

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