This sprawling city in the desert tends to bake technological advances into spectacular spectacles, with companies trying to outdo each other on giant screens and booming audio. So it was notable that the first big move on a quiet standards advancement that could help consumers came not with fireworks, but in a modest meeting room at CES 2024.

There, Amazon executives laid out their roadmap for adopting Matter Casting, an element of the new smart home standard Matter that allows devices and services to move media around the home across brands. Amazon said it has updated its Prime Video app to use Matter Casting to shift shows and movies from mobile devices to its newest smart screen, the Echo Show 15. More Amazon devices are due to follow.

It’s a small start, but a meaningful one according to industry insiders. Matter Casting provides a common language for the fast-growing number of smart products to handle video casting, similar to technologies like Google’s Chromecast and Apple’s AirPlay. But those tools lock users into specific corporate ecosystems. Matter Casting is designed from the ground up to work across all devices, freeing consumers from brand lock-in.

“We’ve been developing this over a few years, and we want to put Matter Casting everywhere,” said Chris DeCenzo, a principal engineer at Amazon who works on Alexa devices, in an interview.

That will require competitors like Google and Apple to adopt Matter Casting in their products, which seems unlikely since they have their own casting tech customers rely on. But Amazon’s move shows that Matter can drive real change in the market, which could prompt partners over time.

If it works, customers could see more seamless smart home experiences. Today you need to remember if your smart TV or streaming stick works with Chromecast or AirPlay from your phone. Under Matter Casting, video transmission would just work using whatever app or device you have.

Analysts say it’s a strong opening bid in what could be a lengthy standards battle, with a company that has skin in the game on both the consumer electronics and services side.

If CES is good at anything, it’s providing a vast stage for big visions of the future. Matter Casting may not be the flashiest standard, but over the years its quiet persistence could make the streaming wars and smart homes simpler for consumers. At least that’s what Amazon is betting as it makes the first move.