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31 Aug, 2024
Posted by Ihor Ovchynnyk
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4 General Smart Home Technologies: Matter, Hubs, Devices, and Protocols

Nowadays, smart home technologies are one of the fastest-developing technological solutions for users, offering more and more integrated advanced solutions for automation and management at home. Further, we will discuss the main features of modern smart house systems, focusing on a new protocol called Matter, and the role of hubs, and devices to be installed at least in the basic smart home system.

Matter: The Smart Home Protocol Changing Everything

Matter is a new standard from the Connectivity Standards Alliance, formerly known as the Zigbee Alliance. Its development was to solve one of the major pains of device compatibility for all manufacturers. Among the leading companies involved in working out this matter are Apple, Google, Amazon, and Samsung, which makes it a cross-platform thing.

Benefits of Matter

  1. High Compatibility: Matter does not tie you to a single ecosystem for your device selection. Instead, it allows devices from different manufacturers to be in communication with one another. You can have lightbulbs of one brand and a thermostat from another, controlling them through one single app or voice assistant.
  2. Ease of Setup: Setting up Matter devices is rather easy; most of them come with QR code-based quick integration into your smart home system.
  3. Multi-Admin Mode: Matter allows controlling from more than one system on the same device. For example, giving your Smart Lock to manage by Google Home and Amazon Alexa.
  4. More Secure: Matter brings technologies such as state-of-the-art encryption, certification, and even blockchain technology to keep your devices safe from unauthorized access.
  5. Local Connectivity: By Matter specification, devices can communicate over a local network directly, reducing the dependency of the system on an internet connection and cloud services.

Hubs in the Smart Home: The Central Control Element

Hubs are all over the place in smart home systems. Simply put, a hub is a central management point that makes devices-which are on different protocols speak to one another. That said, such a hub might be supporting protocols like Zigbee or Z-Wave to connect devices, and then send out those commands to the devices using the Matter protocol.

How Do Hubs Work?

  1. Multi-Protocol Connectivity: Devices such as Google Nest Hub or Amazon Echo may provide connectivity between several devices by using multiple protocols to connect, like Zigbee, Z-Wave, or Wi-Fi. They act as an intermediary to translate the commands from one protocol to another.
  2. Compatible with Matter: Among other things that make a good modern hub is support for the Matter protocol. In more tangible words, a hub joins the devices of different producers to provide unified control over them through voice assistants or apps and takes command. So, in other words, a hub “talks” Zigbee or Z-Wave with the help of sensors or light bulbs and translates them into a universal format called Matter for further governance through applications or voice assistants, namely Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri. 
  3. Control and Automation: Hubs also play a very important role in building automation scenarios such as turning lights on by detecting motion or adjusting the temperature at a certain time of the day. All these features can be orchestrated through the Matter interface to ensure smooth control.
  4. Backward Compatibility: All hubs supporting Matter can easily include older devices that do not have direct support for the new protocol. The devices can be connected to the system with a Matter bridge and managed along with the new ones.

Obligatory Smart Home System

The minimum of a smart home system would include a few main elements that can provide for basic control and automation functions. An example of a basic setup:

  1. Smart Thermostat: The device moderates home temperatures per a schedule and/or personal preference. One can imagine something like a Google Nest Thermostat or an Ecobee, each using the platform through a hub for management in Matter.
  2. Smart Lights or Smart Switches: Probably, these are lights from Philips Hue or other companies that are Matter-enabled; then, they can be voice-controlled and/or scheduled in automation.
  3. Smart Locks: A Matter-compatible lock provides a security guarantee by controlling access to your house. An example could include an August Smart Lock or Schlage Encode, which should be controllable in a Matter system.
  4. Control Center (Hub): It may be purchased as a Google Nest Hub or Amazon Echo, since it serves as the control system’s core, uniting different manufacturers’ devices into one place that can be controlled either by one application or by voice control. With this minimal set of devices, you will be able to start to exploit already implemented smart technologies for making your home more comfortable and safe. This lays the foundation for further expansion and integration with other devices.

Conclusion

State-of-the-art smart home technologies, such as Matter and multi-protocol hubs, make consumers the master of integrating thousands of device possibilities into a single, harmonious whole, easily and securely. It is clear that the problem of incompatibility is easily managed by Matter: hubs are controllers at the center, linking the devices operating on a diversity of protocols, and providing users with handy tools to manage and automate their smart homes. In this case, technologies are simply and affordably applied for the purpose of fostering a wide range of opportunities toward increasing one’s level of comfort and security within the house.