14: Matter 1.4 - the bad, good, and what’s still needed
along with a round up of interesting smart home news and my YouTube videos
Today’s edition is a little late because I’m experimenting in publishing the audio version as a separate podcast that you can subscribe to in your podcast player of choice. More details to come if this initial test works well, but you can check it out here
Follow up on Thread in Macs:
A quick followup from last week’s newsletter. It turns out Apple did actually ship a Thread radio with a handful of recent Macs including the latest crop of Mac minis. It’s not mentioned at all on their specs page or support documents, but is revealed in FCC filings.
The equivalent radios in iPhone and iPad are enabled so that users can setup Thread devices with Apple Home without using an Apple Home hub. You can’t currently add Apple Home accessories on a Mac, so that use case doesn’t make sense. Either way, every detail of what goes into these products is considered. I don’t think Apple would put a Thread radio in these Macs if they didn’t at least have tentative plans to take advantage of them some day - maybe in the same way they turned on the temperature sensors in the HomePod mini years after the product was released.
Matter 1.4
Matter is a key part of what makes the smart home palatable to a larger audience. I can’t overstate what a huge deal it is for us as smart home users, and the industry as a whole. But the current state of the standard still leaves lots of room for improvement. Just don’t mistake this criticism for me looking a gift horse in the mouth and not understanding how great Matter is for all of us. But it could be so much better…