The new Matter standard is intended to make smart homes simpler and more powerful – and these devices work with it
LIGHT BULBS AND SMART LIGHTS
The B22 Smart Bulb from Nanoleaf isn’t the most feature-packed smart home device, but it works as intended and works well. You can choose from white or an almost limitless number of colours in terms of illumination, the bulb can be controlled through an app on your phone or via voice commands, and there are lots of customisations to explore. £19.99, nanoleaf.me
Sengled is a smart lighting brand you can trust and the Wi-Fi Multicolor A19 Smart Bulb just does about everything you would want a smart bulb to do. You can choose from millions of colours and plenty of customisations in the accompanying app, and there’s voice control support too, if you prefer talking to your lightbulbs. £14.99, sengled.com
This strip light instantly adds character to any room: you get 5 metres (16.4 feet) of lights, with 60 LEDs along every metre. Govee has engineered the tiny bulbs to be ultra-bright, and you can customise the colours and lighting effects in all kinds of ways. Stick it along furniture, down a wall, behind a TV, or anywhere you like. £69.99, uk.govee.com
These string lights are sure to spark conversations among guests to your home, as well as helping them see where they’re going: the lights are gorgeously designed, and stretch a full 15 metres (49.2 feet) in length. They can be used and positioned in many different ways, and they’re waterproof if you want to set them up outside. £109.99, wizconnected.com
WHAT’S THE MATTER?
Since the smart home first became a viable proposition, getting devices working happily and reliably together has been trickier than it should’ve been: Apple, Samsung, Google, Amazon and others all have their own ideas about the protocols that pieces of hardware should use when talking to each other, which leaves you with multiple apps on your phone and a smart home that’s a collection of isolated gadgets operating independently.
This is where Matter comes in: it’s been developed as a standard to bring together all the disparate smart home devices on the market today, and get them communicating properly with each other. It should mean that you don’t have to worry about buying a new smart light that doesn’t work with what you already have installed – as long as everything is Matter compatible, you’re good to go.
As well as all of your door locks, smart lights and room sensors chatting to each other in the same language, the adoption of Matter should improve smart home security too, because if one device gets compromised then the others are going to know about it. There are some big names behind Matter, too. The big tech giants we mentioned earlier – Apple, Samsung, Goo
