On this episode of the HomeKit Insider Podcast, Connectivity Standards Alliance CEO and President Tobin Richardson stops by to talk about the future of Matter.
Tobin Richardson is the President and CEO of the Connectivity Standards Alliance, or CSA, which is the member-led organization that is responsible for the development of Matter. Apple is one of many member companies of the CSA, assisting in developing the new unifying standard.
Since 2014 Tobin has led the CSA through its development of IOT networking. Currently, the organization has roughly 700 members.
Matter launched a little over two years ago, intended as a new standard that would allow products to seamlessly work with Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, Amazon Alexa, and Apple Home with one certification. Recently, version 1.4 was announced with new features and fixes.
Tobin and AppleInsider spent most of the episode going into the details on what’s been going on with Matter including its struggles. We also talked about the 1.4 release and what the future of the standard look like.
There was also a lot of news for the week, including several new products and updates. We saw a valve controller and smoke detector from Aqara, two smart displays from Amazon, and a new Matter controller from Flic.
The Kwikset Halo Select is now available to purchase, after being announced a couple weeks ago. Ecobee is also adding new energy reports too the app.
Finally, we once more touch on the Matter upgrade to the Level Lock. After we finished our update, we lost support for Apple Home Key.
Links from the HomeKit Insider podcast
Keep up with everything Apple in the weekly AppleInsider Podcast. Just say, “Hey, Siri,” to your HomePod mini and ask it, and our latest HomeKit Insider episode too. If you want an ad-free main AppleInsider Podcast experience, you can support the AppleInsider podcast by subscribing for $5 per month through Apple’s Podcasts app, or via Patreon if you prefer any other podcast player.