Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google has announced that it is enabling Matter on a variety of Google products.
- The new standard will make it easier to customize your smart home with other brands.
- Google plans to enable Matter on more devices in 2023.
The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) announced the launch of Matter back in early November. Now we’re starting to see the fruits of that launch as Google announces Matter is coming to Google Nest devices, Android, and Google Home.
If you haven’t been keeping tabs on the latest developments in the smart home industry, Matter is a smart home interoperability standard that was developed in collaboration with Samsung, Amazon, Google, Apple, and hundreds of other companies under the CSA. Matter aims to fix the connectivity challenges between the large variety of smart home devices on the market. The idea is to make it easier for consumers to purchase whatever brand of smart home device they want and have it work seamlessly with the rest of their smart home ecosystem.
According to Google, it has started to enable Matter on Google Nest devices, Android, and Google Home. The Nest devices getting Matter include some gadgets you may already own such as:
- Google Home speaker (first-gen)
- Google Home Mini
- Nest Mini
- Nest Audio
- Nest Hub (first and second-gen)
- Nest Hub Max
- Nest Wifi Pro
As to how this will affect Android, Google says that the update will add support for Fast Pair. This feature will make it fast and easy to pair with Matter-enabled devices with your home network, Google Home, or other smart home apps.
The company also mentioned users will be able to connect their Matter-enabled devices to their home network through Wi-Fi or Thread — a technology that allows seamless connection over a long distance. Google states that its Nest Wifi Pro, Nest Hub Max, and Nest Hub (second-gen) will be updated to work with Thread.
Added to the announcement, the Mountain View-based organization provided a little insight into its plans for 2023. Those plans include not only enabling Matter on more Nest devices, but also adding iOS support and a deeper integration of Matter’s Multi-Admin experience. For example, when you open up the Google Home app, you’ll be able to see Samsung SmartThings devices and add them to Google Home.
Although this is all happening now, this has been the plan since this initiative started. In fact, all the way back in October, it was revealed that Samsung and Google were promising to roll out Matter-based syncing “in the coming weeks.”
