Matter, the new smart home standard that is supposed to usher in a new era of simplicity and interoperability across all forms of smart home devices has officially launched this week. It’ll probably be months before support for Matter reaches all the different device types included in the standard, such as Fire TVs and streaming devices, but Amazon has announced the first 17 Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Show models to receive support for Matter. Here’s the full list as well as details on which aspects of Matter will initially be functional and which will not.
The 17 Echo devices slated to be updated sometime in December with support for Matter are:
- Echo 3rd-gen
- Echo 4th-gen
- Echo Plus 2nd-gen
- Echo Studio
- Echo Dot 3rd-gen
- Echo Dot 4th-gen
- Echo Dot 5th-gen
- Echo Dot w/ Clock 3rd-gen
- Echo Dot w/ Clock 4th-gen
- Echo Dot w/ Clock 5th-gen
- Echo Show 5 1st-gen
- Echo Show 5 2nd-gen
- Echo Show 8 1st-gen
- Echo Show 8 2nd-gen
- Echo Show 10 3rd-gen
- Echo Flex
- Echo Input
These devices will become Matter controllers once they receive the Matter update next month. These are not the only Amazon devices that will receive support for Matter. They’re just the first that will get it by the end of the year with more devices receiving support in early 2023. Notably missing, for now, are all models released prior to 2018, the 2nd-gen Echo Show 10, and the Echo Show 15. Amazon has not specified which other devices will be updated to support Matter, apart from saying that “30 Echo and Eero devices” will gain support at some point.
While support for Matter is arriving on the above-listed devices next month, it’s going to, initially, be very limited in its capability. For starters, support for Thread, the low-power mesh networking protocol, will not be included, so only Matter over WiFi will work at first. Further, the Matter capabilities coming will only work with Matter-supported apps on Android devices initially, such as the Amazon Alexa app and the Google Home app. This is likely because iOS 16.1, which adds Matter to iOS devices, was only just released this week. The last limitation of the initial Matter rollout on Echo devices is it will only include control of smart plugs, smart bulbs, and smart switches.
So, while Matter has technically launched and it is, technically, arriving on Echo devices in a matter of weeks, the actual usability of the new standard will very limited at first. Given that there are literally hundreds of millions of devices involved in this massive smart home collaboration among most of the top tech companies, it’s understandable that things aren’t going to be lit up across the board all at once.
The real question is. Why does Matter even matter?
Matter of fact, it’s basically a matter of opinion. Which is really all that matters.
It don’t matter, nun a dis matters
All Echo devices matters, not just the darker ones.
Hopefully your comment won’t be censored :)
Does being ‘matter’ compliant mean they’ll start working better?
Will we be able to stop their long-winded replies when asking a simple question?
Will we be able to stop the ‘By the way’ follow-ons?
Will we be able to have the lights come on in a ‘matter’ of 1 or 2 seconds or still have to wait between 5 and 10 seconds?
There’s a lot of stuff that ‘matters’ that sometimes makes me want to throw those things out the window.
surprised echo show 15 is not on the list
also surprised echo flex is on the list
probably means nothing to me anyways since I have an aotec hub anyways
not sure if echo devices having matter will matter I mean will they gain anything by being matter and being endpoints?
maybe for example being able to be used for announcement speakers routines running on other ecosystems like ST?
Happy to see that the Echo Links and Inputs are supported, even though they are apparently no longer for sale (Input) or out of stock (Link). I have a number of Links all around my house and a pair of Inputs.