Matter Alpha

Not every smart home product can be glamorous. Some, by design, should go unnoticed. IKEA's KLIPPBOK water leak sensor is one purchase that, if you’re lucky, you’ll never have to interact with—but if you do hear its alarm go off, you'll be glad it's there. IKEA’s little sensor has a few things going for it. At only $10 each, it’s affordable, which is a big win for a sensor you'll need to buy multiples of.

Outdoor lighting has a bit of a problem: range. Dead zones are a problem for Wi-Fi, and remote devices need a reliable power source, which is preferable to batteries or solar power. Power over Ethernet (PoE) is an option, but while it provides data and power to a device, it isn’t intended for outdoor use, where direct sunlight can damage the outer sheath and allow moisture to corrode the copper cable inside.

Whether you have a compact lawn or a sprawling garden of grass around your home, some days you just want to relax without firing up the mower. You might have an electric, a push mower, a battery-powered grass-cutter, or prefer the pleasure of a gasoline mower. But robot mowers have improved considerably over the past five years, and are becoming a popular addition to many homes.

IKEA’s latest DIRIGERA firmware update introduces a newer Matter Controller and reduces mDNS network traffic, signaling a push for better reliability in large smart home setups. Ward Zhou 1 hour ago Please note: This page may contain affiliate links. Read our ethics policy IKEA has released a new firmware update for its DIRIGERA hub, bringing a newer Matter Controller alongside several Matter and Thread optimizations.

The Zemismart MJ82 is a simple Matter-over-Wi-Fi curtain motor that does exactly what it needs to: open and close a compatible curtain track reliably and quietly, without forcing you into another app, another hub, or yet another Thread troubleshooting spiral. It is not a drop-in retrofit like a SwitchBot Curtain, and installation takes more effort because you are replacing the track itself rather than clipping something onto an existing pole.

Getting devices onto your smart home using is so much easier and faster than it was, and someone needs to shout about it. It’s early 2024, and you’ve just bought a smart home light bulb from IKEA or some other hardware retailer. It has Wi-Fi, it has Zigbee too, perhaps Thread, and is marked as Matter compatible. So, you take it home, attach it to the fitting, safely discarding (or preferably, reusing) the previous bulb. You switch it on at the wall – all is well.

ESPHome, an open source project that provides alternative firmware for Espressif chipsets, has just announced its breakthrough 2026.6 update. Under the Open Home Foundation, the same organization behind Home Assistant and Matter.JS, ESPHome is now much more accessible to average users, following the same path Home Assistant has taken over the past few years. Building homemade devices is now easier with a visual configuration interface instead of the complex, grammar-sensitive YAML editor.

SwitchBot has announced the release of the SwitchBot Outdoor Pan/Tilt Cam 3K, an impressively-specced exterior security camera with Wi-Fi, Home Assistant support, and AI recognition. But, curiously, it doesn’t offer compatibility with Matter, despite the latest iteration of the standard introducing camera support. Instead, it is designed to work with the SwitchBot AI Hub, which extends the camera’s recognition and alert features.

I bring many smart home products into my home, but it's not often that one is universally liked by everyone who sees it. The SwitchBot Standing Circulator Fan has been that product. It is gorgeous, practical, and feature-rich. Its advantages over regular fans are immediately obvious. SwitchBot has done the work to integrate this fan with each of the major smart home platforms, but the Matter support is quite sparse.

After a rather slow start, which saw only a handful of releases over the emerging standards' first few years, Matter-compatible ceiling lights are now quickly becoming one of the hottest categories in smart home lighting. Following recent launches from companies like Govee and SwitchBot, Nanoleaf is the latest to join the trend with its new Smart Multicolor Ceiling Light—a hardwired overhead fixture that spreads millions of colors across multiple modes and lighting zones.