I’d say how Apple handles Matter is the #1 question of the smart home community now. Followed by Amazon and then SmartThings.
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Agreed. I hope Apple’s WWDC21 will answer more questions on June 7th.
// reading tea leaves to pass the time until WWDC21
Group A: People who want to get their hopes up.
- Apple is the #1 contributor to the connectedhomeip repository: six of the top eight contributors are Apple employees.
- Apple sent more speakers than Amazon & Samsung combined to the Thread Group’s 2020 CHIP Webinar and CSA’s 2021 CHIP Webinar.
Group B: People who want to bring their hopes down.
- On both the HomePod mini (Oct 2020) and Apple TV 4K (May 2021) pages, Apple notes their Thread radios are “Not compatible with non-HomeKit Thread devices”, as @jkp reminded me above.
- Apple was absent from the Matter brand announcement and has not released public statements yet.
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One more possibility:
Being matter-compatible Will make it much easier for devices to be HomeKit compatible, something Apple would be in favor of. But the device still has to be able to run without a cloud in order to meet HomeKit requirements.
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doesn’t the application layer that Matters works on naturally not require a cloud to send states and commands?
As I understand it, it will support local operations, but local operations are not required and not all manufacturers have committed to them. There’s always some optional non-local component because the whole point of this was make it easier for the voice assistants, which so far are all cloud dependent. So just talking to Google assistant or Alexa or Siri introduces a cloud piece.
HomeKit currently runs locally EXCEPT for Siri.
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I was just thinking today that although the impetus for project CHIP
originally came from the voice assistant companies (Amazon, Google, Apple), Samsung has been a member from the beginning.
And think how cool it would be if some of the rules engine platforms like smartthings and Tuya could also easily work with matter-compliant devices. All the devices out there where we have to hack together integration through intermediaries like Alexa routines and IFTTT and homebridge Might be able to just work with your smartthings account if the radios were compatible (WiFi works) and they were Matter-compliant.
It would be like the stock Z wave DTHs today, you might not get all the advanced features, but still… That could be very cool. 
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Matter was mentioned during the WWDC keynote today! Will have to wait for more developer sessions this week + online docs.
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And it’s official: Matter devices can be controlled from the HomeKit app, although that is NOT The same thing as being HomeKit certified. But very cool.
Support for Matter will be built in to iOS 15 and will be a part of the Home app, allowing users to control both HomeKit and Matter devices in one place.
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So now the question is what functionality difference is there between Matter vs HomeKit? Matter allows control from the Home app but not automations maybe?
No way to tell yet, although based on what we’ve seen in the past Siri should be able to control matter devices, that’s kind of the whole point of the initial matter project, making them work easily with the voice assistants.
It may be as simple as that Matter devices might be allowed to require a cloud.
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So with matter, would we see new devices coming out & being able to work with smart voice assistants & hubs?
Working with voice assistants, yes. Nobody has said anything one way or another about hubs yet.
I’ll say when i joined smartthings back in 2016, smart home life seemed so much more simple.
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Did I miss this announcement? See the reference in the announcement today about the new 2021 app:
SmartThings continues to double down on enhancing its technology. Recently, SmartThings announced the integration of the Matter protocol into its ecosystem, holding its leading spot as the platform with the most flexible ways to connect devices, including Wi-Fi, Z-Wave, Zigbee, and now Matter.
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I didnt get that update yet. I’m on android to.
I don’t want to double post everything, but today Apple announced a bunch of details of how they are going to handle matter.
Essentially they are going to build the matter support into iOS, and you get to it through the HomeKit developer platform.
Other smarthubs, potentially including smartthings, could use this platform to create their own app that then brings in matter devices. The matter devices would show up in both the HomeKit app and the smartthings app. It’s not a perfect integration, but it’s very cool.
And of course it’s only available to those with iOS devices, android users would have to find another alternative.
More details about how Apple is going to handle it in the following thread:
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I will say also that if Samsung decide to match the level of developer functionality in the smartthings app for android users, or at least for those with Samsung phones, that would be pretty awesome. But maybe Samsung will wait on Google to provide something equivalent in android itself.
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Stacey Higginbotham has an excellent blog post on the as yet undefined aspects of Matter and what that may mean in practical terms:
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I’m not getting the graphic. (And as far as I can see, it’s just one analyst’s attempt at an explanation, it’s not coming from the CSA itself.)
Zigbee is mesh. Thread is mesh. The Bluetooth which is used in Matter so far is not mesh. So… Not sure what they’re trying to say here.
Plus, they put the cluster library and the bridge on the same layer which just isn’t how it works.
Also, they shouldn’t be using the Homekit logo, they should be using the home app logo. They’re not identical. matter will have a separate parallel integration with the home app.
And why list the IEEE standards for most things, but not for Bluetooth (IEEE 802.15.1 btw)?
So, I’m just confused. 
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