Inside the room where the smart home industry is still betting on Matter
Inside the room where the smart home industry is still betting on Matter
深入现场：智能家居行业为何依然押注 Matter
At the CSA’s inaugural Unify conference, the mood was optimistic but realistic. Matter hasn’t delivered on its promise, but I left convinced that it still can. 在连接标准联盟（CSA）举办的首届 Unify 大会上，现场气氛既乐观又务实。Matter 尚未完全兑现其承诺，但我离开时确信，它依然有潜力做到。
Four years ago, overlooking a canal in Amsterdam, the smart home industry collectively launched Matter, the one interoperability standard to rule them all. Heralded as the solution to the industry’s struggles, Matter was built on open standards and existing technologies and is the result of years of collaboration between traditional rivals, including Apple, Google, Amazon, and Samsung. 四年前，在阿姆斯特丹的一条运河边，智能家居行业共同发布了 Matter——一个旨在统一所有设备的互操作性标准。作为解决行业困境的方案，Matter 基于开放标准和现有技术构建，是苹果、谷歌、亚马逊和三星等传统竞争对手多年合作的结晶。
Matter promised an end to walled gardens and ecosystem lock-in. It promised to make a smart home device, like a lock, lightbulb, or sensor, easy to buy and set up. It promised you could choose any brand, use any platform, no expertise required — it would just work. Matter 承诺终结“围墙花园”和生态系统锁定。它承诺让智能锁、灯泡或传感器等智能家居设备变得易于购买和设置。它承诺用户可以自由选择品牌、使用任何平台，无需专业知识——一切只需“即插即用”。
“Matter long-term won’t be successful until everybody can use it at parity. That’s the goal. And all the companies know that.”— Tobin Richardson, CSA “从长远来看，只有当每个人都能在同等水平上使用它时，Matter 才能取得成功。这就是我们的目标。所有公司也都明白这一点。”—— Tobin Richardson，CSA
It didn’t. Today, Matter is still not there. Adding devices to your smart home is still cumbersome and finicky; sharing them across ecosystems can be unreliable, and some features users expect aren’t part of Matter and still require the manufacturer’s app. But, based on what I saw at the Unify conference in Austin, Texas, last week, Matter is much closer to its promise of a simple, reliable, interoperable smart home. 然而，它并没有做到。时至今日，Matter 仍未达到预期。向智能家居添加设备依然繁琐且不稳定；跨生态系统共享设备时常出现故障；用户期待的一些功能并未包含在 Matter 标准中，仍需依赖厂商的专用 App。但根据我上周在德克萨斯州奥斯汀参加 Unify 大会的见闻，Matter 正越来越接近其“简单、可靠、可互操作”的智能家居愿景。
Following a rocky launch and years of broken promises, the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) designated 2025 as the year to fix Matter — and I have seen significant improvements. This year at Unify, the CSA’s first public-facing event since the Amsterdam launch of Matter, version 1.6 of the spec was announced. 在经历了坎坷的发布和多年未兑现的承诺后，连接标准联盟（CSA）将 2025 年定为“修复 Matter 之年”——我确实看到了显著的改进。在今年的 Unify 大会上（这是自阿姆斯特丹发布会以来 CSA 首次面向公众的活动），官方宣布了 1.6 版本规范。
The most significant new feature, Joint Fabric, will let you create a single smart home network that can be controlled by any Matter platform — which is the Matter we thought we were getting all along. The question is, will the platforms adopt it? And that’s a question that has been at the heart of Matter’s struggles to date. It turns out that corralling an industry is not easy. 其中最重要的功能“联合架构”（Joint Fabric）将允许用户创建一个单一的智能家居网络，并由任何 Matter 平台进行控制——这正是我们最初期待的 Matter。问题在于，各大平台会采纳它吗？这正是 Matter 迄今为止陷入困境的核心所在。事实证明，整合整个行业绝非易事。
The mood at the three-day conference was optimistic but realistic. There was widespread recognition that Matter hasn’t done what it set out to do, but that the work is being done to get it there. 为期三天的会议气氛既乐观又务实。业界普遍承认 Matter 尚未实现其既定目标，但大家都在为实现这一目标而努力。
I asked Tobin Richardson, the CEO of the CSA, whether he believed Matter had achieved that initial promise that you could buy a device with a Matter logo and it would be easy to set up and use on any platform. “We’re on the path,” he hedged. “In some ways, yes. But in some places, universally and globally, we still have a few more milestones to get there.” 我问 CSA 首席执行官 Tobin Richardson，他是否认为 Matter 已经实现了最初的承诺，即购买带有 Matter 标志的设备就能在任何平台上轻松设置和使用。他委婉地回答：“我们正在路上。在某些方面，是的。但在某些领域，从全球范围来看，我们还需要达成几个里程碑才能实现目标。”
The biggest concern among many of the attendees I spoke to — which included representatives from silicon vendors, manufacturers, and ecosystem companies such as Google, Amazon, and Samsung — is the widening gap between the spec and its implementation by ecosystems. This disconnect has led to more consumer confusion, rather than less. 我与许多参会者交流后发现，他们最大的担忧在于规范与生态系统实际落地之间的差距正在扩大。这些参会者包括芯片供应商、制造商以及谷歌、亚马逊和三星等生态系统公司的代表。这种脱节导致消费者的困惑不减反增。
What is Matter?
什么是 Matter？
Matter is a smart home interoperability standard designed to provide a common language for connected devices to communicate locally in your home without relying on a cloud connection. It is built to be secure and private, easy to set up, and widely compatible. Matter 是一项智能家居互操作性标准，旨在为联网设备提供一种通用语言，使其无需依赖云连接即可在家庭内部进行本地通信。它旨在实现安全、私密、易于设置和广泛兼容。
Developed by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), whose members include Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung (and others), Matter is an open-source, IP-based connectivity software layer for smart home devices. It works over Wi-Fi, ethernet, and the low-power mesh networking protocol Thread. Matter currently supports most of the main device types in the home. These include security cameras, lighting, thermostats, locks, robot vacuums, refrigerators, dishwashers, dryers, ovens, smoke alarms, air quality monitors, EV chargers, and more. Matter 由连接标准联盟（CSA）开发，成员包括苹果、亚马逊、谷歌、三星等。它是一个基于 IP 的开源连接软件层，适用于智能家居设备。它通过 Wi-Fi、以太网和低功耗网状网络协议 Thread 运行。目前，Matter 支持大多数主流家居设备类型，包括安防摄像头、照明、恒温器、门锁、扫地机器人、冰箱、洗碗机、烘干机、烤箱、烟雾报警器、空气质量监测仪、电动汽车充电桩等。
A smart home gadget with the Matter logo can be set up and used with any Matter-compatible ecosystem that supports that device type via a Matter controller and controlled from multiple smart home platforms at the same time with a feature called multi-admin. 带有 Matter 标志的智能家居设备，可以通过 Matter 控制器在任何支持该设备类型的 Matter 兼容生态系统中进行设置和使用，并利用“多管理员”（multi-admin）功能同时从多个智能家居平台进行控制。
Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, and Apple Home are some major smart home platforms supporting Matter, along with hundreds of device manufacturers. 亚马逊 Alexa、Google Home、三星 SmartThings 和 Apple Home 是支持 Matter 的主要智能家居平台，此外还有数百家设备制造商参与其中。
Matter 1.6 launched this month, but Apple, Google, and Amazon are barely at 1.3, which came out two years ago. SmartThings has committed to adopting new specs within six months of release, but Samsung still hasn’t added Matter support to its appliances. Matter 1.6 本月发布，但苹果、谷歌和亚马逊目前仅支持两年前推出的 1.3 版本。SmartThings 已承诺在规范发布后六个月内采用新标准，但三星仍未将其家电产品接入 Matter 支持。
Without platform parity, Matter’s promise simply can’t be fulfilled. George Yianni, head of technology at smart lighting company Philips Hue, summed up the general feeling: “It would be great if, within a year of new features being published in the spec, it was broadly supported by the ecosystems.” 如果没有平台间的一致性，Matter 的承诺就无法实现。智能照明公司 Philips Hue 的技术负责人 George Yianni 总结了普遍感受：“如果新功能在规范发布后一年内能得到生态系统的广泛支持，那就太好了。”