Discovering that the seemingly smart home product you just bought isn’t compatible with the smart hub, smart lightbulb, or other smart gizmos you already possess is a common smart home problem.

With a new smart home standard named “Matter,” Google among other Big Tech companies, including Apple, Amazon, and Samsung, are attempting to fix that interoperability problem.

“Matter,” which will be available this summer, will allow you to buy any smart home device you want and control it using Google Assistant, Alexa, Siri, or another Matter-compatible platform.

If you have an Amazon Echo or Google Home speaker, you can use it to control items around the house (blinds, lights).

Apple’s HomeKit, on the other hand, is a more self-contained technology that only works within your home. The Matter standard will build a self-contained system for all smart-home devices in a similar manner.

“Matter” will be supported by Amazon, Apple, Google, and 220 other companies in the future. According to the Wall Street Journal, “more than 5.5 billion Matter-compliant smart-home products” will be shipped by 2030. What is the point of cooperating?

• It makes the market bigger: Consumers don’t have to worry if one device works with another.
• It’s developer-friendly: Creators can send product updates just once instead of making changes specific to Apple, Amazon, and Google.
• It’s consumer-friendly: A consistent standard means better security and longer shelf life.

Door locks, motion sensors, thermostats, lights, and smart TVs will all be enabled when Matter launches in the middle of the year (not yet supported: security cameras, robot vacuums, and appliances).

It’s way simple to add new smart home products to Matter by just scanning the QR code. Alexa, Siri, and the Google lady will not be fully cloud-free. For its own products, each corporation has premium features. However, you can rest assured that generic smart lightbulbs will function with all of them for the time being.