The smart-home standard “Matter“ has been postponed yet more, this time until the autumn of this year. It was supposed to happen in the spring of 2022, but it was postponed until the summer.
After its members returned from CES in Las Vegas, the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) looked at what was left to achieve to deliver on Matter‘s promise of not just a robust standard and SDK, but also a dynamic ecosystem of products, according to a statement.
They decided to enhance the testing and validation events to better code quality and stability while also accommodating the breadth of Matter devices and platforms. This may delay the public release of Matter 1.0 by a few months, but the aim is that it will arrive with a larger pipeline of Matter-enabled devices and a stable supply chain of development platforms for future devices.
The CSA has completed seven test events and is currently working on its eighth, has had contributions to the SDK double by the end of 2021, and has more than 130 devices and sensors on its approach to becoming the first Matter-capable and certified devices on the market.
The focus of developers is now primarily on code quality, stability, and cleanup. This includes work on access control functions, device attestation and security linked to the distributed compliance ledger and public key infrastructure, and device interaction features, among other aspects of the specification.
Furthermore, the CSA expanded its efforts to enable the development and verification of more than 16 development platforms, including operating systems and chipsets, ensuring that Matter would launch with a robust supply chain of compatible platforms to support new devices, apps, and ecosystems.
This spring, it will add a ninth test event to address this issue. The Matter Specification Validation Event (SVE), which is now scheduled for the summer, will follow. This will be the alliance’s most complicated and largest validation event ever, with more than 130 devices representing 15 device and sensor kinds from more than fifty member businesses expected to participate.
SVEs, unlike routine test events, produce formal compliance findings and are critical to the certification of these first products, the validation of the final specification, and the preparation of test labs for the formal certification program to begin.
“Given this, we will devote the time and resources needed to do it right,” said the CSA statement.
The CSA will complete its regular test events this spring, and the SDK will be feature complete as scheduled. The test harness and test tools will be feature complete, and all Alliance members will have access to version 0.9 of the Matter specification by mid-year.
The SVE will follow, and Matter 1.0 will be released in the autumn once it has been completed and validated. Following that, all companies interested in certifying Matter devices will be able to participate in the formal certification scheme. Following that, alliance members are likely to make additional announcements and launch plans for new and existing products that enable 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,” said the CSA statement. “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.”
