Matter 1.3 supports new appliances and energy reporting

The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) has announced Matter version 1.3, a significant update that brings support for major household appliances and new energy and water management capabilities to the smart home standard.

“This latest release marks an important step forward, enabling devices that can be more helpful to users in the kitchen and laundry room, enhance entertainment and smart home interaction on screens, and make the smart home more efficient and safer with new energy and water management support,” the CSA stated.

With Matter 1.3, manufacturers can begin implementing support for microwave ovens, traditional ovens, cooktops, extractor hoods, and laundry dryers in their products. Users will be able to control cooking modes, temperatures, and receive notifications like when food is ready or cycles have ended.

On the energy management front, the update introduces reporting capabilities that allow any Matter device to share actual and estimated measurements such as power usage in real-time. Devices can also report their energy consumption or generation over time to help users understand and optimise their usage.

Electric vehicle charging is a new energy-focused device type supported in Matter 1.3. EV owners will be able to control how and when their vehicle charges, including setting departure times that allow smart scheduling to take advantage of the cheapest rates.

Water management receives attention too, with Matter 1.3 adding support for leak detectors, freeze sensors, rain monitors, and controllable water valves to provide enhanced monitoring and protection.

Entertainment and smart home functionality see improvements with better media device handling. Enhancements include push notification support, expanded TV app interactivity, text/track data, and improved search. Devices can also send notifications to screens, such as when a robot vacuum gets stuck.

“With the support of our membership and the active participation of a strong community of engineers and product experts from across the globe, the Connectivity Standards Alliance and its members remain committed to Matter as the industry’s best path to delivering increased simplicity, interoperability, security, and value to consumers,” the CSA said.

Beyond the new device type support, Matter 1.3 introduces several other key features:

• Scenes allow creating predetermined settings that can apply across multiple devices 
• Command batching enables more synchronised experiences by sending multiple instructions together
• Improved setup flows, connectivity error reporting, and extended device beaconing periods
• Cluster revisions for Basic Information, Channel, Door Lock, Diagnostics, Media, and other areas
• Automated tooling to improve alignment between the Matter spec and SDK

“As our member companies invest the time needed to integrate, test, and deploy new features, updates, and new devices to the market, we look forward to future announcements of products delivering these new capabilities to users through Matter,” the CSA stated.

With major smart home vendors like Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung, and others involved, Matter is well-positioned to finally resolve the interoperability challenges that have long plagued the IoT space.

“With the release of version 1.3, Matter continues to expand its footprint across the smart home industry and the IoT ecosystem,” the CSA concludes.

See also: UK introduces first IoT security laws

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Tags: internet of things, IoT, matter, matter 1.3, smart home, standards