Interest in smart homes is steadily growing, and this trend is not limited to tech-savvy users. Smart homes are also increasingly accessible to the wider masses, where ease of use is a key feature.
One of the main challenges of current smart home devices is that each device, if not from the same manufacturer, requires its own application, which increases the complexity of use.
The Matter protocol is a new standard that allows devices from different manufacturers to be used over a single protocol, eliminating the need for multiple separate applications.
This master’s thesis provides an overview of the Matter protocol, explains how to program a Matter-compatible device on an Espressif microcontroller, and provides an overview of the factory provisioning process.
It also explores Matter device functionality from a user perspective and compares features between Matter and existing protocols.
Based on the current state of the Matter implementation, this master's thesis concludes that, despite its great potential, the protocol is not yet fully mature for widespread use. Despite its official release in version 1.0 two years later, the Matter protocol still does not support all of the functionalities written in the specification. Furthermore a number of bugs persist in the protocol, especially in the area of connectivity. A part of the problem lies in smart home applications, which currently have poor support for Matter.
Despite these challenges, we believe that Matter is the future of smart home protocols, which will replace existing protocols and simplify the market for smart home devices.
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