rewrite the article into original and human friendly within 300-400 words - Amazon just added support for bridges, but Matter is still in a bind


handful of new Matter smart home gadgets were launched at the IFA 2023 tech conference last week, including an intriguing ceiling light from Aqara, fun RGB light bars from Yeelight, a line of Matter-ready appliances from Midea, and stylish new smart security cameras from Philips Hue, which the company says will work with Matter when the standard supports cameras.

It’s great that more Matter-compatible gadgets are rolling out, bringing the promise of secure local control and cross-platform interoperability into the smart home. But we need more progress behind the scenes.

While I saw some of that coming out of Berlin, including full platform support for bridges so your existing smart home gadgets can work in Matter (yes, including Amazon!) and strong indications that camera compatibility is on its way, some of Matter’s key features are still missing.

As of this week, Amazon and Samsung have finally added support for bridging

In particular, the promise that our new Matter-powered smart homes wouldn’t be dependent on hubs, as devices should be able to talk directly to one another without an intermediary. It turns out that’s still technically true, but because the Connectivity Standards Alliance, which manages the standard, hasn’t mandated that every platform implement every part of the Matter spec, consumers aren’t getting some of the best features.

Here’s a look at the Matter news coming out of IFA and where the new smart home standard now stands.

What is Matter?
Matter is a new smart home interoperability standard that provides a common language for connected devices to communicate locally in your home without relying on a cloud connection. Developed by Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung, Matter uses Wi-Fi and Thread wireless protocols and currently supports smart sensors, smart lighting, smart plugs and switches, smart thermostats, connected locks, and media devices including TVs. 

All of this means that if a smart home gadget you buy has the Matter logo, you can set it up and use it with any Matter-compatible device, any Matter-compatible platform, and a Matter controller. There are now a number of Matter devices available to buy, with more arriving this year.

Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, and Apple Home are some of the major platforms that support Matter, and they have all updated their compatible smart speakers, hubs, and some other devices to be Matter controllers.

Philips Hue gets Matter, which means the bridges are finally being built
The popular Philips Hue smart lighting ecosystem is finally adding support for Matter via a firmware update to its bridge starting this month. Hue got a lot of stick for delaying its rollout, but the reason for it was simple and understandable: not all Matter platforms supported bridging. Now they do.

Hue’s existing lighting products work in Matter through the bridge, and if Hue had added Matter support last month, it would have only worked with Google Home and Apple Home through Matter. As of this week, Amazon and Samsung have finally added support for bridging.

“We recently completed rolling out support for Matter hubs and bridges,” Amazon spokesperson Connor Rice told me. “Now, customers can connect Matter-enabled hubs and bridges, like the Philips Hue Bridge, to Alexa through any Matter-enabled Echo device.” Samsung also confirmed to me it started rolling out a firmware update to its SmartThings hubs last month that added support for third-party Matter bridges.

No Matter platform currently supports binding

Eve demonstrated this binding function at IFA with its new Thread-based Eve Thermo Control (€79.95, EU only), a wireless E Ink display that can be bound (or associated, as Eve calls it) with its Eve Thermo radiator control system. This lets it feed the temperature from a different part of the room to the radiator, similar to how an Ecobee thermostat works with its room sensors. 

However, no Matter platform — such as Apple Home, Home Assistant, Amazon Alexa, or Google Home — currently supports binding. Eve’s Tim Böth told me they can only get this feature to work in Apple HomeKit using its Eve app, not the Apple Home app. This means the function is only available to Apple Home users using Eve’s iOS app, which is not the promised cross-platform functionality Matter should bring.

While we won’t see camera support this year, mid-2024 could be a possibility

We’ve only just got bridging on all the platforms, so it’s not surprising that binding — a more complicated advanced feature — hasn’t been priority No. 1 for the engineers. But it’s one of those features that will make the smart home “just work.” Imagine buying a motion sensor and a pack of light bulbs, plugging them in, and they work together right out of the box — even without an internet connection! That’s what binding would bring. 


But that’s not happening because, right now, you have to use the platforms to set up this type of automation, and they would very much like to stay between you and your sensors and devices so that you are more inclined to stay with them. For example, you might use an Alexa routine to tie this motion sensor to that bulb. With binding, that relationship won’t be controlled by Amazon anymore, which means, for the time being, you’re stuck with workarounds like the one Eve introduced.

Cameras are coming to Matter, probably next year
Aqara’s new E1 camera was launched at IFA. The company says it will work with Matter when the standard supports cameras.
Aqara’s new E1 camera was launched at IFA. The company says it will work with Matter when the standard supports cameras. Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
What every platform is working furiously on is cameras. There were a number of new cameras announced at IFA, including several from companies who said their new product would work with Matter once the spec supports it. 


This included the new Philips Hue Secure line of cameras and Aqara’s new entry-level Camera E1. Jasper Vervoort of Signify (owners of Hue) and Filipp Shved of Aqara both told me that their new cameras would support Matter, and both seemed confident that would be sooner rather than later, although neither offered an exact timeline.

The Connectivity Standards Alliance has made it clear that cameras are coming to Matter, and I heard a lot of talk at IFA about this being priority No. 1 for the organization and its members. We’re not going to see it this year, is my guess, but mid-2024 could be a possibility.

As Matter is a standard and not a platform, the implementation of support for cameras will be around how to livestream video from point A to point B — say, from your video doorbell to your smartphone’s smart home app or your smart display. 

The more complicated and more lucrative side of cameras — subscriptions for recording and storing video and features such as person detection — will remain with the platforms and manufacturers.

Here’s what Matters
It’s clear from my conversation at IFA that the industry is still aligned on Matter as the best solution to the big interoperability problem in the smart home. They know that if devices can’t work together seamlessly, people are not going to want them in their homes.

But right now, devices still don’t work together seamlessly — not because the technology doesn’t work but because some platforms and companies are hesitating or hedging their bets. It’s understandable that everyone is jockeying for the best position here, looking to get the most out of Matter when it is fully deployed. But they still have to deploy it fully. You can’t win a race when the track isn’t even finished.