The topic we are going to talk about today is related to smart home.
When it comes to smart home, everyone should be familiar with it. As early as the beginning of this century, when the concept of the Internet of Things was just born, the most important application field was smart home.
Over the years, with the continuous development of digital technology, more and more home smart hardware has been invented. These hardwares bring great convenience to family life and also increase the fun of life.
Smart Home
However, when we use smart home devices, we must have encountered such problems——
Suppose, you are using a mobile phone of manufacturer A, and the smart home platform app of manufacturer A is installed. At this time, manufacturer B released a smart home product, which you like very much. However, the App of manufacturer A has no way to manage it. If you want to buy it and use it, you must install another App from manufacturer B.
Of course, if you take a fancy to the products of C manufacturers, it means that you have to install the apps of C manufacturers...
Over time, you will have a lot of apps on your phone.
Yes, this is the ecological barrier problem that has plagued the smart home industry for a long time .
In fact, the development of IoT technology has always been characterized by fragmentation. Different application scenarios match IoT technologies with different characteristics. Some require large bandwidth, some require low power consumption, some focus on stability, and some are very concerned about cost.
This has led to the mixed use of various underlying communication technologies such as 2/3/4/5G, NB-IoT, eMTC, LoRa, SigFox, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, and Thread.
The smart home is a typical LAN scenario, mainly based on short-distance communication technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, and Thread, with various types and cross-use.
Moreover, because smart homes are aimed at non-professional users, manufacturers often build their own platforms and UI interfaces and adopt proprietary application layer protocols in order to ensure user experience. Thus, the current "ecosphere war" was formed.
The barriers between ecology not only bring endless troubles to users, but also cause a lot of trouble to manufacturers and developers—to launch the same product, it is necessary to develop for different ecology, which greatly increases the workload and cost.
It is precisely because the problem of ecological barriers seriously restricts the long-term development of smart homes, so the industry has begun to devote itself to finding solutions to this problem.
█ Birth of the Matter Protocol
In December 2019, Google and Apple joined the Zigbee Alliance, and joined Amazon, more than 200 companies and thousands of experts around the world to jointly promote the new application layer protocol, which is the Project CHIP (Connected Home over IP) protocol.
As can be seen from the name, CHIP is home interconnection based on IP protocol. The purpose of this agreement is to increase device compatibility, simplify product development, improve user experience, and promote industry development.
After the birth of the CHIP working group, it was originally planned to release standards in 2020 and launch products in 2021. However, for various reasons, this plan failed to materialize.
In May 2021, the Zigbee Alliance changed its name to CSA (Connectivity Standards Alliance, Connectivity Standards Alliance). At the same time, the CHIP project was also renamed Matter (Chinese means "situation, event, matter").
The alliance changed its name because many members were reluctant to join Zigbee. And CHIP was changed to Matter, most likely because the word CHIP is too well-known (the original meaning is "chip"), and it is very easy to crash.
In October 2022, CSA finally officially released version 1.0 of the Matter standard protocol. Not long ago, on May 18, 2023, Matter version 1.1 was also released.
Members of the CSA alliance are divided into three levels: initiators, participants, and adopters. The sponsor has the highest level and is the first unit to participate in the drafting of the agreement. It is a member of the board of directors of the alliance and participates in the leadership and decisions of the alliance to a certain extent.
Part of the initiator unit
Google and Apple, as representatives of the initiators, made great contributions to the early specifications of Matter.
Google contributed its own Smart Home's existing network layer and application protocol Weave (a set of standard authentication mechanisms and device operation commands), while Apple contributed HAP Security (for end-to-end communication and local area network control, ensuring a strong privacy and security).
According to the latest data from the official website, there are 29 initiators of the CSA alliance, 282 participants, and 238 adopters.
Under the leadership of the giants, industry companies are actively exporting intellectual property rights for Matter, and are committed to building a unified seamless interconnection ecosystem.
█ Matter's protocol architecture
After talking for a long time, how should we understand the Matter protocol? What is the relationship between it and Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Thread and Zigbee?
Don't worry, let's look at a picture first:
This is a protocol architecture diagram. Wi-Fi, Thread, Bluetooth (BLE), and Ethernet (Ethernet) belong to the underlying protocols (physical layer and data link layer); the bottom layer is the network layer, including the IP protocol; the upper layer is the transport layer, including TCP and UDP protocols; and the Matter protocol, which we have mentioned earlier, belongs to the application layer protocol.
In addition to the underlying protocols, Bluetooth and Zigbee also have dedicated network layers, transport layers, and application layers.
Therefore, Matter, Zigbee, and Bluetooth are mutually exclusive protocols. Currently, the underlying protocols supported by Matter are only Wi-Fi, Thread, and Ethernet.
In addition to the protocol architecture, we also need to know that the design concept of the Matter protocol is open.
It is an open source protocol that can be viewed, used and modified by anyone to suit different application scenarios and needs, which will bring transparent and reliable technical advantages.
The security of the Matter protocol is also a big selling point. It uses the latest encryption technology and supports end-to-end encryption to ensure that the user's communication content will not be stolen or tampered with.
█ Matter's networking mode
Next, let's look at the actual networking of Matter. Or through a picture to illustrate:
As shown in the figure, Matter is a protocol based on TCP/IP. Therefore, what is the networking of TCP/IP, what is the networking of Matter.
Wi-Fi and Ethernet devices that support the Matter protocol can be directly connected to the wireless router. Thread devices that support the Matter protocol can also be interconnected with IP-based networks such as Wi-Fi through Border Routers.
For devices that do not support the Matter protocol, such as Zigbee or Bluetooth devices, you can connect to a bridge device (Matter Bridge/Gateway), perform protocol conversion, and then connect to a wireless router.
█ Industry progress of Matter
Matter represents the development trend of smart home technology. Therefore, since its establishment, it has received widespread attention and enthusiastic support.
The industry is very optimistic about the development prospects of Matter. According to the latest report from market research company ABI Research, from 2022 to 2030, more than 20 billion wireless connected smart home devices will be sold globally, and a large proportion of device types will meet the Matter specification.
Image via: ABI Research
Matter currently uses an authentication mechanism. The hardware developed by the manufacturer needs to pass the certification process of the CSA Alliance in order to obtain the Matter certification and allow the use of the Matter logo.
According to the CSA, the Matter specification will apply to many types of devices such as control panels, door locks, lights, sockets, switches, sensors, thermostats, fans, climate controllers, blinds, and media devices, covering almost every aspect of a smart home. all scenes.
Terminal device types supported by Matter (from CSA official website)
From an industrial point of view, many manufacturers in the industry have passed the Matter certification and are gradually entering the market. In terms of chip and module manufacturers, their support for Matter is relatively strong.
Quectel, a leading domestic module company, as a participant-level member of CSA, has made relevant contributions to the application layer of Matter, and has also launched a variety of Wi-Fi modules that support the Matter protocol, including FC41D and FCM100D , FLM040D and FLM140D and other series of products.
Their one-stop Matter solutions based on modules, APPs, platforms, certifications, and production can quickly lower the R&D access threshold for customers' Matter devices and shorten the product launch cycle.
Considering that Matter is still in its infancy, the entire agreement has a certain degree of technical and cooperation complexity. Therefore, Quectel puts more emphasis on "simple operation, reliability and safety" in the Matter module products launched.
Taking lighting and electrical engineering applications as examples, Quectel is based on the application layer firmware developed by the Matter module, which can realize many very practical functions.
The Quectel solution can support APPs that meet the Matter standard to configure, control, and share devices, and supports customers to establish their own APP systems through OEM APPs. The one-stop end-to-end solution of "terminal + connection + platform + application" they provide can help customers connect conveniently, efficiently and quickly, and realize more IoT scene applications.
It is worth mentioning that Quectel can also provide a complete set of production line transformation solutions to help customers realize a series of tasks such as two-dimensional code laser engraving, functional automation testing, and equipment aging testing.
█ Epilogue
As an upper-layer protocol, Matter's biggest role is to break down the barriers between different devices and ecosystems. Different people have different perspectives on Matter. Some people regard it as a savior, while others regard it as a clean stream.
At present, the Matter protocol is still in the early stage of entering the market, and more or less still faces some problems and challenges, such as high cost and long update cycle of existing equipment.
Either way, it's a shock to a system of smart home tech that's been dull for years. If the old system restricts the development of technology and limits the user experience, then we need technologies like Matter to stand up and take on great responsibilities.
Whether Matter will be a success, we have no way to draw conclusions. However, empowering family life with digital technology and continuously improving users' digital life experience is the vision of the entire smart home industry and the responsibility of every industry company and practitioner.
I hope that smart home can break through all technical shackles as soon as possible, and truly enter every family.
