The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) released version 1.3 of Matter, giving smart home brands another avenue to expand their technology into the kitchen and other areas of the home. One of the pillars of the upgrade is the ability to control important or more essential appliances. This includes ovens and stoves.
With the former, owners can check the “oven status” – for example, whether it is preheating or cooling – and monitor how it is operating. You can tell the device to start grilling the ribs placed inside. Kitchen stoves will see a similar level of control. Users can turn it on or change the temperature from afar.
When it comes to laundry rooms, CSA adds support for dryers and allows control of various functions, such as changing the drying mode. The machine will even send a notification letting you know when your clothes are dry. If you're curious about washing machine compatibility, it was added in Matter 1.2. Version 1.3 expands that support.
Public services management
Owning a home involves a lot more than just appliances. The management of public services is another important aspect. To help with this, the CSA updated the standard's energy reporting capabilities. Connected smart home devices will now tell you how much electricity they consume, how much they generate, and other important metrics such as current voltage. The energy characteristics also extend to electric vehicles. Thanks to Matter 1.3, EV drivers can control the charge level to match the desired range. They can do this by indicating a “set departure time” or by manually deactivating charging.
Additionally, Matter can monitor your home's plumbing. Her app will display information from installed pipe detectors that will let you know if the house has a leak somewhere or if the pipes are frozen.
Notable improvements
Everything we've covered so far applies to devices that were not previously supported. The rest of the patch consists of new software features and improvements to previous hardware.
According to the CSA, scenes are now supported, allowing owners to create special conditions that are activated with the press of a button. For example, a scene can dim the lights in your living room or change its color instantly.
Matter 1.3 also allows users to group multiple commands to run one after another. The CSA claims this will minimize the “popcorn effect,” which is a large delay between commands sent to a smart home device and their visible execution. Software improvements in Matter 1.3 include the ability to view notifications from other devices on smart TVs plus several bug fixes.
If you're looking to upgrade your home, check out TechRadar's roundup of the best smart home devices for 2024. We've got speakers, cameras, thermostats, and more on the list.
