How do you say it best?
If you are going to do something, do it right. Do what’s right, not what’s easy.
There are no truer words – and this is how we’ve approached Matter from the start. Bringing together the biggest, brightest, and best to build something in a manner – and with momentum – never seen before in our industry.
That approach has yielded amazing dividends. We delivered a feature-complete specification, conducted seven test events (now conducting our eighth), saw contributions to the SDK double by the end of 2021, and finished the year with a staggering number of real-world products – more than 130 devices and sensors – that are on their way to being the first Matter-capable and certified devices in the market. In both our organization’s 20-year history – and the industry as a whole – this is an unprecedented level of scale, scope, and commitment.
Returning from CES 2022, our members and team looked at what’s left to do to deliver on Matter’s promise of not just a robust specification and SDK, but also a vibrant ecosystem of devices. To further improve code quality and stability and accommodate the breadth of Matter devices and platforms, we’re extending our testing and validation events. While this will have the effect of pushing the public launch of Matter 1.0 by a few months, we’ll be launching with a larger pipeline of Matter-enabled devices, and a robust supply chain of development platforms for more devices to come. Even with this, there’s a lot of good news and reason to be confident in our plans to get Matter done and done right.
Where are we in the process?
With the tremendous progress on Matter’s SDK, developer focus is now largely on code quality, stability, and clean-up. This includes work in a few key areas of the specification, like access control functions, device attestation and security (related to the Distributed Compliance Ledger and Public Key Infrastructure), and device interaction functions. Furthermore, we have extended efforts to allow for the build and verification of more than 16 development platforms (OS’s and chipsets) so that Matter will launch with a healthy supply chain of compatible platforms to support new Matter devices, apps, and ecosystems.
To address this, we’re adding a 9th test event this spring. That will be followed by our final gate, the Matter Specification Validation Event (SVE), now planned for summer. This validation event will be the Alliance’s most complex and largest ever, as we expect to see more than 130 devices representing 15 device and sensor types from more than 50 member companies. Unlike regular test events, SVEs produce formal compliance results and are crucial to certification of these first products, validating the final specification, and readying our test labs for the start of our formal certification program. Given this, we will devote the time and resources needed to do it right.
What’s next?
This spring, we’ll finish our regular test events, and the SDK will be feature complete as planned. The test harness and test tools will also be feature complete; and Version 0.9 of the Matter specification will be made available to all Alliance members at mid-year.
The SVE will follow and, once complete and validated, we will see the launch of Matter 1.0 in the fall. After that, the formal certification program will be open to all companies wanting to certify Matter devices. We expect our members will follow thereafter with additional announcements and launch plans for both new products and products supporting Matter software upgrades.
We know that a change in schedule, even a small one, can be disruptive or disappointing to everyone excitedly waiting for Matter’s launch – but we believe what will make the biggest impact in the market are quality developer tools and assets, a great selection of Matter-enabled products and a robust supply chain of platforms to build the next ones. We also know our Alliance members are all-in, the finish line is in sight, and we are reaching milestones with confidence, quality, and massive support. The biggest brands in the world continue to invest countless hours in Matter, alongside their colleagues from more than 240 member companies. It’s clear to us that, without exception, commitments stand strong for those leading the charge on Matter. And on that point, we couldn’t be more excited, and more determined than ever.
The ongoing work is really down to quality, stability, and validation – meaning we’re in the home stretch. For the ability to tear down the walled gardens in IoT, accelerate growth, and improve experiences for customers and consumers, we’re certain a couple extra months will be worth the wait.