Zigbee Alliance renamed to the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) and Project CHIP officially branded as "Matter" and given a logo to prepare for product availability later this year

Configuration Zigbee
1

Zigbee Alliance has announced that the IoT (Internet-of-Things) technology consortium organization has been renamed to “Connectivity Standards Alliance” (or “CSA” for short) to make it clearer that is governing more IoT standards than just the Zigbee standard, (those standards include; Zigbee, Smart Energy, Green Power, JupiterMesh, Dotdot, and now also Matter).

https://zigbeealliance.org/news_and_articles/connectivity-standards-alliance/

The IoT-over-IP working group “Project Connected Home over IP” (a.k.a. “Project CHIP”, i.e. a new high-level IP based IoT network connectivity standard that will be supported over Thread and WiFi and possibly more networking media technologies in the future) has now also officially been named “Matter” as its final wordmark/brand name as well as given an official logo/symbol in advance of the first Matter-branded devices which should available before the end of 2021.

https://zigbeealliance.org/news_and_articles/chip-is-now-matter/

Connectivity Standards Alliance new website https://csa-iot.org/ still redirect to About Us | Who We Are | The Alliance - CSA-IOT and https://www.connectedhomeip.com is no longer online though the project’s source code git repository on GitHub is still active at GitHub - project-chip/connectedhomeip: Matter (formerly Project CHIP) creates more connections between more objects, simplifying development for manufacturers and increasing compatibility for consumers, guided by the Connectivity Standards Alliance.

Much more information posted about this news on CSA and Matter https://zigbeealliance.org/about/newsroom/

image
image728×115 11.2 KB

1281×962 326 KB

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/oyqcikuvzfhbxo8/AADtWT_MAk7Y6Hl0KEy3_oF4a?dl=0

Members poised to be early adopters of Matter include: Amazon, ASSA ABLOY, Comcast, Espressif Systems, Eve Systems, Google, Grundfos Holding A/S, Huawei, Infineon Technologies, LEEDARSON, Legrand, Nanoleaf, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP Semiconductors, Qorvo, Resideo, Schlage, Schneider Electric, Philips Hue / Signify, Silicon Labs, Samsung SmartThings, Somfy, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, Tuya Smart, ubisys, Wulian, and Zumtobel Group.

For reference, I first read about this news on Engadget website myself:

Engadget in turn refer to this press release as their source of this news:

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210511005928/en/The-Connectivity-Standards-Alliance-Unveils-Matter-Formerly-Known-as-Project-CHIP

1 Like
2
5 Likes
3

@nickrout Yes, even if this standard is successful expect to need more bridges/gateways in the future.

Any non-native “legacy” device that does not support Matter/CHIP natively will need a bridge/gateway:

  • Zigbee to Matter bridge/gateway.

  • Z-Wave to Matter bridge/gateway

  • Bluetooth to Matter bridge/gateway.

  • Thread to Matter bridge/gateway.

4

Will Matter-compatible devices be forced to allow local intranet steering, or also allow cloud-only steering?

5

that’s what will likely happen. In a normal Smart Home already is a ridiculous amount of gateways, that problem needs to be addressed too. Best they can do is ONE Gateway maintained by the Alliance.

6

From the press release:

Companies interested in accessing the specification and building devices with Matter can join the Connectivity Standards Alliance.

That’s disappointing. They’re using the word “open” way to much then. Seems the open source community has to reverse engineer the reference implementation.

Afaik that’s not really a thing, because Matter will be used on top of Thread (they’ve put a pun in there) or any other transport for IP, eg. Ethernet, WiFi, etc. I guess there will be a thread border router in every coming talking home cylinder coming, but that’s basically an IP router between two network segments, while a zigbee/z-wave/ble gateway actually terminates the network and has to offer it’s own IP interface.

If there’s a thread border gateway in the network, you’ll be able to send IPv6 packets directly to the devices in the thread network. Meanwhile in a zigbee network, you’ll have to talk to zigbee2mqtt or whatever, and that has to implement the protocol of the zigbee device and translate.

1 Like
7

Just think of CHIP as a new competitive alternative to Bluetooth Mesh, Zigbee, Z-Wave, and/or Thread.

Yes, in fact they will initially not support cloud at all. The standard is focus on local control and will initially only support local control. Standard is similar to Bluetootyh Mesh, Thread, Zigbee, and Z-Wave that way.

All that is very unlikely. It is initially local control only and the goal is never to be dependent on any cloud services and as an “open standard” anyone can make make a gateway/bridge.

8

That is not entirly true. It only uses Thread technology to handle networking layer for low-power devices.

It does not mean that all existing Thread devices can act as Matter/CHIP low-power devices without modification, as any Matter/CHIP low-power devices very least they will need a new Matter/CHIP specific application firmware. Each unique device will require a Matter/CHIP application firmware specifically made for that device.

That basically means that manufacturers can convert their existing Thread devices with new Matter/CHIP application firmware for them.

Also, since most existing MCU chips that supports Thread usually support Zigbee 3.0 as well it also practically means that manufacturers can probably relativly easily convert their Zigbee 3.0 into Matter/CHIP with an alternative application firmware.

That does not mean that you should expect that manufacturers will allow you to convert your existing Thread and Zigbee 3.0 devices into Matter/CHIP devices, but instead probably mean that manufactuers will for a foreseeable future will release seperate device models that really use the same hardware device with different firmware for Zigbee 3.0 and Matter/CHIP.

9

No, reverse engineering should not be needed, as it is suppose to be an “open standard” it should mean that mean that all needed technical specifications and documentation needed to code an implementation should be publicly available.

True that “open standard” does not necessarily equal that any or all source code is released under “free and open source software” licenses, but understand that you only absolutely need to join to Connectivity Standards Alliance if you plan on releasing certified devices, but yes just like Zigbee you might need to join to get full access to support engineers as well as get a say so in the alliance.

All reference implementations for Matter/CHIP does look to be under open source licenses. Just see:

https://github.com/project-chip/

10

Check out this blog post about getting started as a Matter/CHIP over Thread developer:

https://staceyoniot.com/you-can-learn-much-about-matter-from-the-project-chip-github-repo/

and

https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip/blob/805a4b3fcd753fdb75126d34bb41c7f6137da70f/docs/guides/nrfconnect_android_commissioning.md

plus for backstory reference also see

https://staceyoniot.com/thread-101-what-you-need-to-know-about-this-smart-home-protocol-in-2021/

PS: Recommended reference hardwarer for developer is the Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 dongle:

https://www.nordicsemi.com/Software-and-tools/Development-Kits/nRF52840-Dongle