Series 10 – Episode 10 – How to design for Matter

On the previous episode of Electronic Specifier Insights, our guests introduced us to Matter – a new proprietary standard for home automation that is royalty-free and promises reliable, secure connectivity.

Here, Anderton dives into Matter in more detail and focus on how to start designing with Matter.

“I think if you’ve got a great idea on a new connected product that you want powered by Matter, it’s important to select the right technology partner.

“Part of the decision process is choosing the right development kit … and when you select a development kit, it’s always important to make sure you can build the application you want. Does the kit and chip inside the kit have the right number of IO lines? Does it have the peripherals that you need?

“But Matter is about connectivity and there’s value in connectivity and making things accessible. You need to know when you’re building this product, based on Matter, that the communication will just work. That’s the foundational part of Matter, that the connectivity should just work. Because the software and its implementation give you that interoperability.”

Interoperability is a key driver for enablement and acceptance of the IoT and its devices in our wireless world. The new Matter standard will improve the interoperability between these IoT devices and standards.

The concern of cyberattacks can create hesitation in the minds of consumers, limiting adoption. With this in mind, Matter was created with security and privacy as key design tenets and provides a baseline for building secure IoT devices.

“It’s important that customers/consumers trust smart home devices. You want to know that the communication between devices in your home is strongly encrypted, so that data stays private and secured. The standard here is two factor authentication.”

Anderton goes on to talk about how quickly a designer/system developer can get their Matter-enabled device to market and how he sees Matter evolving in the future.

To hear more about designing for Matter and much more, you can listen to Electronic Specifier’s interview with John Anderton on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.