The smart home needed Matter, a universal language for connected devices that lets them talk to each other no matter who made them. But did it need Thread? We already had plenty of wireless protocols for most use cases Zigbee for lighting, Z-Wave for security systems, Bluetooth for proximity control of devices like locks, and Wi-Fi for high-bandwidth needs such as cameras. If Matter had provided a secure, simple, local way to unify those protocols, it might be in a better place today.

Axar.az reports that instead, Matter chose to use Wi-Fi and Thread for wireless communication, with other protocols needing to “bridge” into Matter, requiring an extra step from manufacturers that few have chosen to implement. So, why pick the relatively new Thread over existing options?

Probably politics. Two of the largest players in bringing Matter to fruition Apple and Google were already fully onboard the Thread smart home train when the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), the group behind Matter, was formed. (Thread was originally developed by Nest, pre-Google, back in the early 2010s.) Plus, Thread is based on Zigbee, and the CSA was formerly the Zigbee Alliance.