What have been the biggest challenges for Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) members working on the Matter standard? Has the standard achieved the promise of the smart home? Why did member companies who are direct competitors decide to get involved, and how do they plan to differentiate their Matter-enabled solutions?
These questions and more were posed to a panel of experts at CES 2025, as panel host Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, Reviewer, Smart Home at The Verge spoke to the following panellists; Michelle Mindala-Freeman, COO at the CSA; Mark Benson, Head of Samsung SmartThings; Ben McInnis, Director, Smart Home at Amazon; Matt Van Der Staay, Senior Director of Engineering at Google Home Platform; and rounding it off, Darcy Clarkson, CEO of BSH North America.

In summarising their challenges with Matter at the beginning of the panel discussion, answers ranged from collaborating with other member companies and appreciating different agendas as well as resources and business models; standards as a whole taking a considerable amount of time to drive adoption; and not all ecosystem partners supporting certain appliances.
“There are so many different companies involved with Matter, and this is really important … to help guide where the standard goes in order for it to be successful in the long term … but that has come with challenges,” said Benson. “Every company that’s part of the Alliance has their own unique business situation, competitive dynamics, resource constraints, different development lifecycles.”
Echoing this point, Mindala-Freeman said: “It’s not like developing a product within your own company. You have to have patience. You have to understand that there are different agendas and personalities and business models.”
In spite of the acknowledged difficulty in navigating member companies’ different agendas and more, the launch of the Matter standard in 2021 has gone from strength to strength, with two annual updates ensuring the continued development of the standard, as well as the addition of new device types. Matter 1.4, the most recent update which was released in November 2024, brought a focus on energy management through the support of device types like solar panels and heat pumps.
The panellists were asked to grade Matter from a perspective of how well it’s achieved as an interoperable standard designed to ensure that smart home devices, regardless of the brand, can communicate with one another.
In response, a point that was raised in Matter’s defence of not having achieved everything, is that as a standard it is in its relative infancy, and standards take a good long while to mature and drive adoption.
“If you take a step back and look at the fact that it’s only been two years, product development life cycles sometimes can take two years,” said Benson.
“I don’t think any of us should be satisfied about where we are today, but I would say there are reasons to be optimistic about the progress,” added McInnis. “The data makes me personally optimistic. If you look at devices available to customers today versus a year ago, there are way more [devices] on average.”
One particularly pertinent question raised by Pattison Tuohy was why these member companies decided to work together, as competitors in the same space, and the fear that because of the ease-of-use and accessibility driving Matter, companies will struggle to differentiate themselves.
The answers, resoundingly, was that this is not the case, connectivity is not the end product and paid for, and that ultimately great customer experience, which Matter enables, has always been part of these companies’ practices.
“We want people to choose Alexa because it was the best customer experience,” noted McInnis. “Connectivity and basic device control are not the product … I think interoperability standards like Matter can free device makers up to spend more of their precious resources differentiating their products.”
“I don’t think any of us should be satisfied about where we are today, but I would say there are reasons to be optimistic about the progress.”
Ben McInnis, Director, Smart Home at Amazon
“When we talk to prospective new members and device manufacturers, sometimes they do ask that question: why should I do this? Won’t it ruin my business model?” said Mindala-Freeman. “I come back to the reason for standards and what has been mentioned already, which is you need to build the foundational infrastructure of connectivity. You don’t compete on connectivity.”
Rounding off the panel, Pattison Tuohy asked panelists to share, in a short soundbite, what Matter needs to do to fulfil the promise of the “sustainable smart home”.
What they said:
“The important thing is to continue focusing on quality and the simplicity of the user experience.” Mark Benson, Head of Samsung SmartThings
“I would echo quality, but quality of customer experience for new customers.” Ben McInnis, Director, Smart Home at Amazon
“I’m going to say it’s about maintaining collaboration … it’s always a challenge when your business interests are in the background as well.” Michelle Mindala-Freeman, COO at the CSA
“We have to make sure we’re focusing on ensuring that manufacturers can build Matter devices easily, seamlessly, quickly, without additional costs.” Matt Van Der Staay, Senior Director of Engineering at Google Home Platform
“For Bosch we need all the partners to support it because at the end of the day, awareness with the end user … [is] a really important feature.” Darcy Clarkson, CEO of BSH North America
There’s plenty of other editorial on our sister site, Electronic Specifier! Or you can always join in the conversation by commenting below or visiting our LinkedIn page.