Google brings smart home standard ‘Matter’ to Android, Nest

San Francisco: Google has announced to bring interconnected cross-platform smart home standard called ‘Matter’ to Android and capable Nest products, powering them with interoperable control and enabling simpler setups.

Earlier called Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP), ‘Matter’ is a unified smart home standard partnership between Google, Amazon, Apple, Samsung, the Zigbee Alliance and others.

At its I/O developer conference, Google said on Wednesday that Android will be one of the leading operating systems with built-in support for ‘Matter’, letting users quickly set up devices with Google and link their favourite Android apps.

“You’ll only need a few taps to set up your Matter devices, and you’ll have lots of ways to instantly control them such as Matter-enabled Android apps, Google Assistant, the Google Home app, Android Power Controls and compatible Google devices,” explained Michele Turner, Senior Director, Google Smart Home.

It also allows over one billion Android devices to enable simple setup and control all Matter-certified products.

Today, there are nine smart devices in the average smart home — in 2016, there were only three.

“While this is explosive growth, the industry is still evolving. Selecting the right devices or connecting them with the ones you already have can be frustrating,” Turner said.

All Nest displays and speakers, like the Nest Hub and Nest Mini, will be automatically updated to control Matter devices.

“We will update the newest Nest Thermostat to support Matter – meaning for the first time it can be controlled on other platforms that have certified with Matter,” Google informed.

The company will soon unveil a new Google smart home directory, an online destination to discover Google Assistant-compatible devices from across more than 30 categories, from brands like Philips Hue, Nanoleaf, Samsung, LG, Dyson, Netatmo, Wyze and more.