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Matter 1.3 pushes the standard into your kitchen, laundry room, and garage

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The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) has rolled out Matter version 1.3 giving smart home brands another avenue to expand their tech into the kitchen and other areas of the house. One of the cornerstones in the update is the ability to control important, or more essential, household appliances. This includes ovens and cooktop stoves. 

With the former, homeowners can check the “state of the oven”, like whether it’s preheating or cooling down, and control how it operates. You can instruct the device to begin broiling the ribs placed inside. Cooktop stoves will see a similar level of control. Users can turn it on or alter the temperature from afar.

When it comes to laundry rooms, the CSA is adding support for dryers and enabling control over several functions like changing the drying mode. The machine will even send out a notification letting you know when your clothes are dry. If you’re curious about support for washing machines, that was added back in Matter 1.2. Version 1.3 extends that support.

Managing utilities

There is more to owning a home than just appliances. Managing utilities is another important aspect. To help with this, the CSA upgraded the standard’s energy reporting capabilities. Connected smart home devices will now inform you how much electricity they consume, how much they generate, and other important metrics such as the current's voltage. The energy features extend to electric vehicles too. Thanks to Matter 1.3, EV drivers can control the charge level to match their desired range. They can do this by signifying a “set departure time” or by manually deactivating the charging.

Additionally, Matter can watch your home's plumbing. Your app will display information from installed pipe detectors letting you know if the house sprung a leak somewhere or if the pipes are frozen solid. 

Notable improvements

Everything we covered so far applies to previously unsupported devices. The rest of the patch consists of new software features and improvements to past hardware.

Scenes are now supported, according to the CSA, letting homeowners create special conditions that activate with the push of a button. For example, a scene can dim the lights in your living room or change their color instantly.

Matter 1.3 also lets users pool multiple commands together so they go off one after the other. The CSA states this will minimize the “popcorn effect” which is a long delay between commands being sent out to a smart home device and their visible execution. Software improvements in Matter 1.3 include the ability to see notifications from other gadgets on smart TVs plus several bug fixes.

If you're looking to upgrade your house, check out TechRadar's roundup of the best smart home devices for 2024. We have speakers, cameras, thermostats, and more on the list.

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