What’s the Matter Now?
We have been noting the slow progression of Matter, the just released standard that is to unify and simplify smart home products, allowing consumers to utilize a wide variety of control platforms to manage their smart devices, rather than being forced to use only those that are dedicated to those devices. The Matter standard was delayed for over two years while details were worked out was officially released last month to considerable fanfare, with the hope that the standard will unify the smart home space by unifying both large and small smart home brands, a difficult task considering considerable sums have been spent on proprietary products, networks, and control systems over the last few years.
There have been questions as to the ‘real’ support the standard would garner from major smart home brands, and while we expect support from major ‘promoters’ such as Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG), Huawei (pvt), LG (066570.KS), Samsung (033570.KS) , and Texas Instruments (TXN) (Full Promoter & member list here), certified product roll-outs will take considerable time as brands incorporate the standard in new products and develop software updates for existing devices and the list of product categories under the new framework expands.
But there seems to be another issue, behind the more obvious ones concerning member support and potential infighting, and that is cost. We have been able to gather some information as to what the Connectivity Standards Alliance, the organization behind the standard, is charging for the ability of a brand to use the Matter logo. As with other major connectivity standards, such as Bluetooth, the platform itself is an open standard, available to everyone free of charge, but if a brand wants to display the Matter logo on a product package to alert the consumer that this will be a ‘Matter Compatible’ product, the CSA charges a fee based on what is known as a PID group, sometimes called a License Code or a Product Key, which is used to identify a registered product. This could be a group of smart light bulbs (max of 4 to a group), or a security camera, but each PID requires a separate license and therefore an additional fee.
Thus far we have seen fees ranging from a bit over $8,000/year to over $11,000/year that must be renewed yearly, which can become quite expensive depending on the breadth of the product line. There has been some push-back on the fees from smaller brands, who have indicated that they will use the standard, but will not subscribe to the logo license due to the cost, with some larger manufacturers likening Matter to Bluetooth, where the standard is widespread but few license the logo. While this is certainly an issue for the CSA, as it must support the continuing development of the Matter standard and the certification process, without the visibility of the logo, it will take far more time for consumers to understand what Matter is and how it might help them with their smart products.
Hopefully, this will not defeat the effectiveness of the standard, which certainly can go a long way toward making smart products more helpful and affordable to consumers, but we expect the seemingly high fees will slow the standard’s growth, despite its potential adoption by brands, leaving much of the proselytizing to those willing to fork over dollars to advertise the benefits of Matter. We expect the major CE players to absorb those costs, but the other thousands of CE brands that could be a grass-roots groundswell for the standard, will be left to hope that others will raise the banner for them going forward and that they have not made a foolish decision when adopting the Matter standard.
There have been questions as to the ‘real’ support the standard would garner from major smart home brands, and while we expect support from major ‘promoters’ such as Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG), Huawei (pvt), LG (066570.KS), Samsung (033570.KS) , and Texas Instruments (TXN) (Full Promoter & member list here), certified product roll-outs will take considerable time as brands incorporate the standard in new products and develop software updates for existing devices and the list of product categories under the new framework expands.
But there seems to be another issue, behind the more obvious ones concerning member support and potential infighting, and that is cost. We have been able to gather some information as to what the Connectivity Standards Alliance, the organization behind the standard, is charging for the ability of a brand to use the Matter logo. As with other major connectivity standards, such as Bluetooth, the platform itself is an open standard, available to everyone free of charge, but if a brand wants to display the Matter logo on a product package to alert the consumer that this will be a ‘Matter Compatible’ product, the CSA charges a fee based on what is known as a PID group, sometimes called a License Code or a Product Key, which is used to identify a registered product. This could be a group of smart light bulbs (max of 4 to a group), or a security camera, but each PID requires a separate license and therefore an additional fee.
Thus far we have seen fees ranging from a bit over $8,000/year to over $11,000/year that must be renewed yearly, which can become quite expensive depending on the breadth of the product line. There has been some push-back on the fees from smaller brands, who have indicated that they will use the standard, but will not subscribe to the logo license due to the cost, with some larger manufacturers likening Matter to Bluetooth, where the standard is widespread but few license the logo. While this is certainly an issue for the CSA, as it must support the continuing development of the Matter standard and the certification process, without the visibility of the logo, it will take far more time for consumers to understand what Matter is and how it might help them with their smart products.
Hopefully, this will not defeat the effectiveness of the standard, which certainly can go a long way toward making smart products more helpful and affordable to consumers, but we expect the seemingly high fees will slow the standard’s growth, despite its potential adoption by brands, leaving much of the proselytizing to those willing to fork over dollars to advertise the benefits of Matter. We expect the major CE players to absorb those costs, but the other thousands of CE brands that could be a grass-roots groundswell for the standard, will be left to hope that others will raise the banner for them going forward and that they have not made a foolish decision when adopting the Matter standard.
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