Matt Maupin, Senior Product Manager at Silicon Labs discussed Matter from the consumer experience in the latest episode of IoT Unplugged, sharing findings from his experiment as well as actionable insights for smart home device manufacturers.
Over the course of three months, Maupin tested Matter-enabled devices across three major ecosystems – Google, Apple and Amazon – to highlight the benefits and limitations of the Matter protocol.
Categorising his findings into “the good, the bad and the ugly,” Maupin explained that with Matter, he found that it was possible to control devices from a single app within a specific ecosystem, whether Google, Amazon, or Apple, which he described as a significant improvement. The seamless commissioning of devices, especially through Wi-Fi using QR codes, was a standout feature as it eliminated the complex setup process traditionally associated with wireless technologies.
Under “the bad,” he pointed out challenges in his testing, including inconsistencies in the user experience when setting up devices across different platforms, such as commissioning the same device on an iPhone and an Android phone resulted in different user flows. Another issue was the limited functionality of devices across ecosystems.
“The ugly”, AKA the most major frustration was that Matter-enabled devices didn’t work across all ecosystems. For example, one switch that functioned in the Apple ecosystem was either unsupported or had limited functionality in Google and Amazon ecosystems.
In terms of actionable insights for device manufacturers, looking at it from a user experience was the key message. “Manufacturers need to test across these ecosystems to make sure everything’s working,” he stressed. “More importantly, I think the ecosystems need to step up and make sure they’re supporting all these device types.”
In his closing comments, Maupin said he was still “pro Matter”, thought it was going in the right direction and referred to understandable growing pains with what he experienced during his experiment.
To hear more from Silicon Labs’ findings on Matter from the consumer experience, tune into the full podcast episode available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and at the link below.
Investigating Matter from the consumer experience – IoT Unplugged
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