TL;DR
- Samsung will support Matter integration within SmartThings, Galaxy devices, and its broader ecosystem.
- Matter allows for platform-agnostic smart home integration. Apple and Google are already on board, too.
- The rollout won’t begin until Spring 2022 and Samsung would not divulge specific products.
Today, Samsung is in the middle of its annual Samsung Developers Conference (SDC). At that event, it announced some big news for folks who have Samsung-based smart home products, although the news also affects pretty much every smart home owner.
Starting next year, Samsung will integrate the Matter protocol into its products. That will include SmartThings products as well as Galaxy devices, televisions, and other household items.
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Matter was formerly known as Project Chip. The idea was to make the smart home landscape less fractured. At this point, there are tons of smart home products out there that only work with certain systems, such as Google Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa, or Apple’s HomeKit. Project Chip — and thus, Matter — aims to allow users to incorporate any product within any ecosystem. For example, a product designed only to work with Apple HomeKit could work with a Google-based smart home.
With Samsung incorporating Matter, it joins Apple, Amazon, and Google who are already committed, at least partially. Once all the major smart home players join up, smart home users would basically be able to buy any product and know it will work in their home.
Samsung did not divulge any specific products that will adopt the platform. It also would only commit to a vague timeframe of Spring 2022. Still, this is great news for your smart home as your buying decisions are about to get a lot simpler.
