The Internet of Things explained: Matter, Thread, and more

Anyone who has considered buying a smart home gadget for the first time has probably wondered how it all works. On the surface, it’s actually pretty easy to explain. Your smart gadget connects to something like your Wi-Fi or an in-home hub, and then you can control it using your smartphone, smart display, or your smart speaker. 

It goes a bit deeper than that, but with the proliferation of things like Matter, the systems are getting smarter and simpler for consumers to understand. In the dark ages of consumer smart home tech, there was less standardization, so you had to shop around for everything to ensure that it worked with the other smart home tech you owned. You still have to do this today, but most smart home brands support the major smart home platforms like Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Apple HomeKit. 

So, if you’re buying your first bits of smart home tech and want a quick primer about how it all works, you’ve come to the right place. Every new industry comes with its own lingo, so it can be a little overwhelming if you’ve never had to deal with them before, but it’s actually not as complicated as it sounds.

What is the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things is often talked about hand-in-hand with smart home tech, but they are not the same thing. Internet of Things (often shortened to IoT) is a network of physical devices that are all connected to the Internet at all times so that they can talk to one another to perform tasks. 

For example, dumb thermostats are all manual, and some allow you to do basic things like set schedules at most. Smart thermostats add to that functionality by letting you set temperatures even when you’re not home, remind you to change your furnace filter, and some, like Google’s Nest Thermostat, have automations built-in that adjust temperatures based on whether or not you’re home, the time of day, and other factors. 

The other half of the Internet of Things is that it allows devices to talk to one another since they are always connected to the Internet, and therefore, one another. Let’s say you own a car with Alexa built-in, and you have a smart thermostat along with some smart lighting. You can leave work, tell Alexa in your car to turn on some lights and the air conditioner at your house, and it’ll all get done before you get home.

In another example, Eufy makes video doorbells that, like most, have motion sensors in them that can detect when someone is at your door. You can also buy additional motion sensors and put them in your driveway. When the motion sensor is tripped, it tells the doorbell, and the doorbell starts recording and sends you an alert to let you know that something is outside. 

In both examples, every device is connected to the Internet, and therefore, one another. This lets them talk to one another to perform tasks, collect and share data, and be in network with one another. That “network of devices” is the “Internet of Things.”

So how does Matter fit in?

If you’re going to have a network of devices (or an Internet of Things), then they need to be able to talk to each other, and that’s where Matter comes in. Matter is a smart home standard that hardware makers can bake into their tech that automatically makes them compatible with one another and with the major smart home platforms like Alexa, Apple HomeKit, and Google Home, all of which are Matter certified. 

Another way to think of it is like video streaming. In today’s world, virtually all streaming services use H.264 (or H.265) for their video streams, including Hulu, Disney+, and Netflix. So, if a streaming device wants to support all of the streaming services, they simply need to support H.264, and boom, they can stream just about everything. In this case, Matter is like H.264

Having a standard like Matter is extremely important because it gives all the smart home tech an easy way to talk to one another that ensures compatibility, easy setup, and reliable performance. That sounds like an advertisement, but in this case, it’s the truth. In the dark ages of smart home tech, you had to carefully read the box, watch reviews, and surf Reddit to make sure that any given product worked with any given platform. Now, all you have to do is look for the Matter symbol on the box, and you’re done.

What does Thread mean and how does it work with Matter?

I know, there are more words to learn, but I promise it’s not that bad. So, we have smart devices, that all talk to each other, and Matter, the software they all run so that they're compatible with one another. The last thing to worry about is the network over which they communicate.

Depending on the technology, this may simply be your Wi-Fi connection at home. That is how my Ecobee smart thermostat does things, and many smart home devices simply use your home’s Wi-Fi. However, when scaled up, it can get kind of crowded, which requires more power and more bandwidth. Thus, another solution needs to exist to help scale things up without bogging down your home Internet. Plus, since these things control sensitive systems inside your home, a boost of security never hurts.

That is where Thread comes in. It’s a low-powered, energy-efficient, more secure way for smart home devices to talk to each other. A Thread-compatible hub can control many Thread-compatible smart home devices over its own network, leaving your Wi-Fi free and clear to binge watch some TV or play video games.

In practice, anyone who’s used a Philips Hue product knows what this is like. Philips Hue lights connect to a Philips Hue hub, which then connects to your home network. The hub can manage dozens of lights, but it only connects to your home Internet once. You use your smartphone to connect to the hub, which then acts as a bridge to all of your lights, letting you control each light separately without connecting each light individually to your home network.

Imagine a Philips Hue hub, but instead of just lights, it also connected to your smart thermostat, video doorbell, motion sensors, and smart appliances, allowing them all to talk to each other, while only needing to connect to your home Wi-Fi with a single, easily managed connection. That’s how Thread works.

Let’s put it all together

Since Thread and Matter are two different things, they can exist without each other. However, products that are built to support both are referred to as Matter over Thread, where Matter is the software controlling everything, and Thread is the network protocol that allows them all to talk.

The combination of these two technologies is already being supported by big players like Google, Amazon, and Apple. There are also already over 140 products on the market that support it right now with more undoubtedly on the way.

That isn’t to say that there’s no competition. Zigbee was the big dog before Thread came out, and major brands like Philips Hue still use Zigbee to this day for some of their older hubs and lights. That’s changing as Philips Hue has already committed to supporting Matter over Thread anyway, but products that don’t use Matter or Thread still exist on the market.

Ultimately, the smart home ecosystem is finally adopting some widespread standards, but as is the case for these sorts of things, it’ll still be a few years before things really start to smooth out. In the meantime, should you want to buy smart home tech, anything with Matter will help futureproof your purchase, and if you can get something with Matter over Thread, that’s all the better.