This is the official diagram, which makes a lot more sense:
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Ah, I meant for normal people who barely understand the smart home, 
All your points are probably as valid as can be: I know even less.
The most general takeaway: Matter is not replacing Google Assistant or HomeKit. There is no unification between Amazon and Samsung now. Matter sits below and having Matter support creates a common bridge. Before, clouds had to make bridges one-by-one to other clouds.
Laypeople, like me, hear âapplication layerâ and can misleading think, âoh, application layer = the apps!â, when an app update wonât do anything alone to enable Matter.
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The tricky part of the CHIPâs official pyramid (which is not intended for consumers and why should it be) is that it ends at CHIP, but consumers wonât ever interact with CHIP directly, but through another ecosystem/cloud that has CHIP support.
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@Fido called this one a couple of weeks ago.
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What is not mentioned is that the motoring industry has been hard hit with the lack of chips, some companies actually limiting or stopping production, not to mention all the other industries on the planet clambering for chips, if and when chips become more readily available the big companies will absorb everything they can get first
Matter and the companies trying to produce devices will be at the back of the purchase list, late 22 is hopeful at best, for mainstream adoption the reality is mid to late 23, hope Iâm wrong but it seems logical given all the variables
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I assume the pre-existing devices will be the first to get Matter cert since they arenât affected by the supply chain issues. So hopefully weâll see things like Hue bridges, Wiz bulbs, Nest Wifi, Nest Hub, etc. get a firmware update in Mid 2022 to enable Matter.
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Expected, but good to hear. 
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Great video; thank you for sharing: spells it out nicely. But, also at 14:16, 
on âMatter v1â. What can consumers expect from version interoperability may be a key question.
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Iâm going to shamelessly link my SmartThings/Matter article here. It gives some more details than other news outlets. aka I wouldnât call it âfullâ Matter compatibility
In other news, Amazon has released more details on its Matter and Thread support
most importantly this snippet
âAll eero Pro, eero Beacon, eero Pro 6, and eero 6 devices already act as border routers, and they will gain Matter over Thread support alongside Echo (4th Gen) in time for Matterâs SDK release next year. Support for additional Echo devices is expected to follow later.â
Iâll be curious to see the details on the Echo support whenever Amazon finally reveals ALL of them. AFAIK the Echo 4th gen doesnât have a second 2.4ghz radio and chipset and a single radio canât support Zigbee and Thread at the same time. So I assume youâll have to choose between Zigbee and Thread. Also curious what other Echo devices will support Thread in the future.
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Oh, interesting. Iâve heard a little about multi-protocol radios, but it requires compromises and seemingly havenât seen it actually in a shipping product. This makes a bit more sense why SmartThings included separate ZigBee and Thread radios.
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Meanwhile, yet another Matter-compatible connectivity standard seemingly in Wi-Fi HaLow. I fear Matter will turn into a USB type-C situation where everything looks like itâll work, but in reality, the underlying hardware isnât universally compatible. I pray not.
What will be the minimum hardware for Matter controllers?
- a Thread radio
- a BLE radio
- a Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz radio
- some border router capability, e.g.,. some door to the internet
- and ?
If Z-Wave devices claim to support Matter, the sticker should read âMatter-compatible with a Z-Wave bridgeâ.
Someone at CSA needs to / hopefully already has put their foot down that every Matter device needs to be compatible with every Matter hub (e.g., presumably hubs will take the brunt of supporting multiple protocols). I canât imagine explaining to my folks, âSo this switch is just Wi-Fi, but not Matter Wi-Fi. Now thatâs Z-Wave Matter, but your Matter hub needs a Z-Wave bridge. Ah, sorry: that is Wi-Fi HaLow: your Matter bridge only has Wi-Fi Matter, but not Wi-Fi HaLow Matter.â
And then range and mesh and battery life and Wi-Fi interference. Good jolly, âYou need to extend your Thread mesh because the garage doesnât have any Thread devices. No, itâs different than your Wi-Fi mesh. No, Blueooth mesh isnât the same. We have a Wi-Fi mesh, but this button uses Thread, not Wi-Fi. Well, you could buy a Wi-Fi button, but itâll have much worse battery life.â
I hope cooler heads prevail at CSA as they launch Matter minimum requirements: just mandate something idiotproof so Matter = Matter. Type-C is a cautionary tale: literally an abominable failure for interoperability and consumer understanding
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Slight correction to my earlier statements thanks to info provided by Jonathan Hui, VP of technology at Thread group. There are more modern chips than can indeed run both Thread and Zigbee at the same time. Like so: https://www.qorvo.com/products/p/GP712
Also, the Alexa developer channel Twitter account has confirmed they will âcontinue to support both Thread and Zigbee concurrentlyâ
iâm guessing they purposely said âcontinue to supportâ without specific Echo models mentioned because not all Echo model will support both concurrently, but good to see it is possible.
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Around 60 devices are in the certification phase: not all for the Matter launch, but hopefully a good number.
From Heise.de covering the recent Eve announcements,
But at least around 60 devices are currently in the certification phase at the responsible Connectivity Standard Alliance (CSA), as its director Jon Harros reported on the sidelines of a press event of the manufacturer Eve. Declarations of intent to have suitable devices on the market for the Matter launch have so far been made by Aqara, Eve, Nanoleaf, Philips Hue, Wiz and Yale. In addition, there are Amazon, Apple, Google and Samsung, which are also among the initiators of the Matter standard.
However, Harros dampened expectations that all of the 60 components mentioned will actually be available in stores at the Matter premiere. The main argument against this is that the devices are in very different stages of development. However, Aqara and Philips Hue also want to have their ZigBee gateways certified for Matter. When this happens, dozens of already available ZigBee components would be Matter compatible in one go.
âŚ
According to the CSA, âfour to fiveâ accessory categories are to be expected at the market launch, including smart lamps, sensors, adapter plugs and heating thermostats. This is sufficient for basic smart home scenarios. Manufacturer Eve offered a foretaste of the practice with a product demo in front of trade journalists. A Google voice command switched on a table lamp using an Eve socket, another command asked for the room temperature from an Eve weather sensor. The voice commands were processed and sent by a Google Nest Hub 2. The Smart Display exchanged itself locally via thread with the accessories.
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Oooh, shiny. 
But note:
But, and this is a big but, nothing in the Matter spec is a requirement. A company that is on board with Matter as a whole is under no obligation to adopt parts of the specification that they donât need or want to.
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Not to be overly optimistic (an unforgiving view in the IoT space), yet itâs likely something in the standard is actually standardized, right? The next line talks about companies instead of products, making it slightly less clear.
Not to declare our cautious hype dead, but itâd be sad to see another effort widely miss the mark.
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On another note, Eveâs CEO has suggested Matter will launch in June 2022, so at least Matter will need to share its years-long efforts, warts and all.
âThread has been a spectacular success for us, and in a not-too-distant future a Thread network in your house will be just as common as Wi-Fi,â Eve Systems CEO Jerome Gackel, told me.
He calls the decision to deploy Thread devices is a âfuture-proofâ decision that means the smart homes built today will work with other devices and platforms using Matter tomorrow. (Gackel expects the new standard to launch around June 2022.)
Perhaps enough optimism for one day. 
Hopefully, further CSA clarifications can disabuse me of further thoughts of hope.
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