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Matter hits close to home: Amazon prepares to add it to most of its devices
We've been eagerly awaiting the launch of Matter since the announcement of the smart home connectivity standard in 2019, and Amazon has indicated that we're closer than ever: The company at its fall hardware event Wednesday reiterated its support for Matter-enabled devices by the end of this year.
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While we saw a real-world demo of Matter implemented at IFA 2022, we still haven't had a Matter product hit the market yet, so it has continued to sound more like dream than reality, until now.
Amazon had announced in 2021 that most of its existing Echo devices would be updated to support Matter from day one of its launch.
Eero CEO and co-founder Nick Weaver said on Wednesday that Amazon is prepared to have the majority of its smart home devices readily support Matter at launch, some with necessary updates in the coming months. With over 300 million smart home devices currently connected to Alexa, Weaver said, "Amazon is working with partners like Eve, Resideo, Phillips Hue, and many others to help make their Matter experiences simple and easy."
Matter is the new connectivity standard created by the CSA as an effort to tear down interoperability walls between manufacturers of the IoT.
Also: Everything Amazon announced at its fall hardware event
Amazon also announced it's adding its signature Frustration-Free Setup to the Matter SDK, so users can add a device to their network and smart home by just plugging it in. Weaver also introduced a new Alexa Connect Kit that "will help device makers connect Matter devices to the cloud, and enable things like easy over-the-air software updates," he said.
"All of this will bring us one step closer to achieving our goal for Alexa to be compatible with all smart home devices, giving customers even more choice and flexibility," Weaver added during Amazon's devices and services event.
At the Sept. 28 event, Amazon also announced updates to its lineup of Amazon Echo devices, which act as a platform for Alexa, Amazon's smart assistant.
Also: From Echo to Astro, here's what's behind Amazon's device strategy
Alexa has been America's favorite home voice assistant for a few years now, and Amazon knows it, advertising its goal of productive ambient intelligence during its hardware event Wednesday. The concept of ambient intelligence, aka ambient computing, is to create technology that is intuitive for everybody, proactive so that users don't have to prompt it to do something for them, and personalized for each user.