Embracing the Present and Future of Smart Homes with Thread and Matter

Matter and Thread address different challenges faced by smart home product makers. However, when combined, devices can successfully meet the smart home’s most critical performance and experience expectations.

 

If you’re a smart home device maker, you know it’s just as essential to differentiate your product as it is to ensure it delivers on users’ expectations at day one—and day 1000.  Many device makers are choosing Matter’s interoperable application protocol for their roadmaps, however arguably more important is selecting the wireless technology that best enhances their products’ performance and long-term user experience.

 

Those who have built Matter over Thread devices report they and their customers benefit from Matter’s great out-of-box setup and multi-platform interoperability, which is further differentiated by Thread’s performance and long-term reliability.

 

The What (and Why) of Matter over Thread?

Matter is an open application standard that enables interoperability between smart home devices from different brands. As a smart home “language,” Matter supports three underlying network protocols—Thread, Wi-Fi, or Ethernet—to connect to users’ networks, and to each other. Device makers must choose the protocol(s) that best serve their product, and because these are all IP-based (the same technology that powers the Internet) Matter products can interact with each other, regardless of which of these network technologies they use.

 

Choosing Thread ensures your devices, business, and users benefit from myriad advantages, which include:

 

• Responsiveness and range — giving users near-hardwired-level responsiveness anywhere they place their devices
• Low power consumption — enabling long lives for battery devices, and new form factors for wired ones
• Interoperable infrastructure — products seamlessly work together, as well as with Wi-Fi and Ethernet devices connected to users’ networks through any Thread Border Router such as those built into many brands’ smart home products.
• Scalability and resiliency — self-forming networks that get stronger with more devices, support redundant network connections, self-heal, and reconnect easily when users’ home networks change. Together, this improved performance reduces returns and customer support calls.
• Robust global supply chain — as a truly open standard, Thread silicon is available in multiple form factors and configurations from a wide variety of suppliers
• Strong security at every layer — using banking-level security technology adapted for low-power devices, without requiring user defined passwords or administration

 

Understanding how Thread uniquely delivers on these key areas can help you decide which of the products on your Matter roadmap Thread is best suited for.

 

Responsiveness and Range vs. Data Throughput

The smart home presents a number of unique challenges. Physically, the device’s purpose often means it’s installed in a challenging location: door locks are on the outside of doors, flood sensors are in the basement near the water heater, smart outlets are inside walls, outdoor lighting belongs in the backyard. Also, they often replace hardwired devices like light switches, for which users have life-long expectations of instant responsiveness.

 

Thread’s low power mesh networking was designed to deliver range and responsiveness in the home. As Wi-Fi infrastructure increasingly focuses on improving data throughput, Thread focuses on range, resilience, and responsiveness. As a baseline, Thread radios deliver a point-to-point range on par with other low-power radio technologies.

 

With more mains-powered devices, Thread’s mesh network extends that range without additional infrastructure. With an efficient protocol that minimizes lag, Thread devices delight users with responsiveness and flexibility that haven’t been seen in the smart home before.

 

Low Power Consumption: It’s About the Batteries AND Your Brand

Keeping smart home devices operational is often critical to users’ every-day safety, security, and comfort—and your brand’s reputation. Having to frequently change batteries in a growing number of smart home devices, or having them run out of power at critical moments, can have big consequences for both. Surprisingly, even for motorized devices like door locks or smart blinds, it’s not the mechanical features but actually the wireless connectivity that represents the biggest power drain.

 

Thread’s low power architecture dramatically improves Matter-over-Thread devices’ battery life compared to their Wi-Fi counterparts. Major smart home lock brands like Nuki, have said they’ll only support Matter via Thread in the future due to the battery life benefits their Thread-based door locks have had for users. Thread is enabling sensor makers to build compact devices that can last for years on small batteries (for example, see Nordic Semiconductor’s Matter over Thread Power Consumption and Battery Life white paper for more technical details).

 

But low power doesn’t just benefit battery-operated devices. It enables new, differentiated devices that do things and go where others can’t. Like Innovelli’s Matter-over-Thread in-wall switches that don’t require a neutral wire, enabling them to access a huge retrofit market previously inaccessible for Wi-Fi based switches.

 

Interoperable Infrastructure

While Matter enables device makers’ simplified interoperability with different smart home platforms, like Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings, Thread offers interoperability at the network layer.

 

To understand what that means, it’s important to know that Thread devices connect to and join users’ home networks via a Thread Border Router. Because Thread is an IP-based technology, once connected through a Border Router, Thread devices are then able to communicate with Wi-Fi and Ethernet connected devices on the network, to their first party app, or ecosystem controller, and to connect to the Internet just like any other device.

 

Unlike previous low power technologies that require dedicated hubs, Thread devices can connect through a Border Router from any manufacturer. And those Border Routers are often built into many devices users already have like smart speakers and displays, set top boxes, TVs, appliances, and modern home routers.

 

This interoperability and ubiquity simplifies the user experience and gives consumers confidence to expand their smart home without worrying about compatibility issues. And it enables you to choose the right technology for each of your products, including having a mixed Wi-Fi and Thread ecosystem that operates seamlessly together. In fact, Aqara cites Thread’s interoperability as one of the key factors to their success.

 

Scalable and Resilient Networks

Thread is built to grow with users’ smart homes—across their homes and over time.

 

Thread was designed for efficient communication, even in a busy wireless environment with, for example, many Wi-Fi devices. To achieve this, it uses a combination of techniques such as listen-before-talk, spread-spectrum modulation, persistent transmission retries, and the ability to change radio channels.

 

Thread’s mesh networking architecture also means that users’ networks get stronger the more Thread devices they have, as mains-powered devices are able to route communications for other nodes on the mesh. This expands Thread devices’ range of course, but it also provides multiple paths for communications, making Thread networks self-healing and resilient to interference, power outages, or users simply moving devices around their home. It also allows for multiple Thread Border Routers on a network, providing redundant paths for Thread devices to reach the rest of the network, so unplugging a single infrastructure device doesn’t take the network offline.

 

 

Those last two points are also critical to Thread’s long-term usability. If a user gets a new Wi-Fi router and changes their Wi-Fi password or SSID, they’ll need to reconnect all their Wi-Fi devices. For many smart home devices, especially those that users likely have a number of like lights and sensors, this can often mean factory resetting and setting them up from scratch. Having to do this  can create a huge chore, not to mention a smart home mess with devices removed from automations, duplicates, and more. Or devices might also simply be left disconnected, affecting anything from safety and security, to maintenance and diagnostic data. Either way, not ideal for your user experience or business. With Thread, users’ devices are connected via Border Routers within any number of mission-critical devices like TVs, set top boxes, smart speakers and displays, and even appliances—devices users are likely to reconnect immediately, restoring connectivity to all their Thread devices.

 

Yale by Fortune Brands, a pioneer in the smart lock space, has cited this network reliability as a key contributor to increasing their customers’ satisfaction: “Our Thread-based door locks have proved to be the most reliable and have the fewest calls to customer service and the lowest return rate.”

 

To learn more about Thread’s communication techniques and networking basics, check out this white paper.

 

A Global Supply Chain

Being competitive means having the flexibility and capacity to build the right products at the right price point. As a truly open industry standard, Thread is developed, maintained, and promoted by the 200+ members of the Thread Group. That includes a global supply chain of IoT silicon, module, services, and testing vendors, ensuring your roadmap will be well supported.

 

Thread’s openness also means that you can join the Thread Group to help ensure Thread continues to evolve with your needs and to engage with partners, customers, and competitors, to see where Thread and the industry is going.

 

Strong Security at Every Layer

Thread and Matter deliver a combined security approach that meets the challenges of today’s IoT. Each provides a separate layer of advanced security features that fortify smart home networks against threats. In fact, Thread uses the same types of security technologies that protect banking transactions and online purchases, and adapts them specifically for low-power devices that need to maintain automatic network security with minimal user interaction, giving users peace of mind. To learn more about Thread’s security features, check out this white paper that deep dives into the latest enhancements in Thread 1.4.

 

Matter is Better with Thread

Matter delivers on ease of setup and cross-ecosystem interoperability critical to helping users start and grow their smart home. But for device makers that truly want to grow with those users, choosing Thread as your network technology is key to increased differentiation and performance, lower support and returns, and delivering great user experiences that drive that growth.

 

Join the Thread Group

By adopting both Thread and Matter, device manufacturers join a rapidly growing community of leading brands and innovators. Become part of the cutting edge of the smart home by joining the Thread Group. Thread Group members gain access to development tools, certification programs, intellectual property rights, marketing support, and the opportunity to shape the future of Thread through active participation in the Technical and Marketing Committees. Embrace these technologies today and lead the way in the smart home industry. Together, we can shape the future.

 

Learn more about becoming a member here.

 

Sign up for our newsletter to stay updated on the latest innovations and opportunities.