Google Nest And Android Will Support Matter IoT Standard

It was really not unexpected that the beginnings of the smart home market saw different systems that spoke different languages, a.k.a. protocols, to coordinate their activities. There were attempts to consolidate these different systems or at least support most of them one way or another. Matter, the new name of the Connectivity Standards Alliance, is the latest such attempt and it's coming not only to Android but also Google's Nest smart home platform.

That Google would announce support for Matter isn't really surprising either. After all, it is one of the founding members of that alliance and its old name, Project CHIP or Connected Home over IP. Other members include Amazon, Apple, and SmartThings from Samsung, covering a broad range of systems and smart home products.

It isn't saying when but Matter's arrival on Android and Nest could help boost the adoption of smart home and IoT products even further. Android phone owners will be confident that they'll be able to set up and control any Matter-compliant product from their phones. Google Nest owners will also be to use their devices as hubs for other Matter products.

That's not the only news related to smart homes that Google announced at I/O 2021. That list includes a new home on the Web for all your smart home needs. There is a new landing page for Google Assistant-compatible products as well as informational material about them.

Google is also taking advantage of the WebRTC protocol that is primarily designed for things like video chat. In this context, however, it will be to improve the quality of live streaming of video and audio between security cameras, video doorbells, and mobile devices. Google hasn't announced a timeline for these features just yet so smart homeowners will want to keep tabs for when it does push out those updates.