Amazon brings Matter to Echo devices, plugs, bulbs, and other devices you own

The new smart home interoperability standard, Matter, is gradually finding its way to a number of smart home devices. The latest company to roll out Matter support for its devices is Amazon.

On the company’s blog, Amazon announced that it is taking a phased approach to its Matter support rollout and that it had completed the first phase of this project. According to the company, this first wave of implementation brings Matter support to 17 different Echo devices, plugs, switches, and bulbs.

Amazon explained its approach by stating:

Our phased approach allows us to begin rolling out Matter support for the most common device types while continuing to work through interoperability, stability and longevity-testing with our partners, ensuring customers have a seamless and high-quality experience with Alexa.

If you’re unfamiliar with Matter, it’s a standard that was developed by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) in conjunction with hundreds of other companies including Google, Samsung, Apple, and Amazon. The ultimate goal is to make it easier for consumers to customize and build out their own smart home network without having to worry about what gadget works with what.

As Amazon points out in its blog, this development should expand the number of connectivity options users have. So if you have say a Google Nest thermostat, it should work nicely with Amazon’s Alexa.

Since this is only the first phase of its rollout, Amazon is likely going to add Matter support to more of its devices in 2023. This announcement comes shortly after Google made a similar announcement about Matter support coming to a number of its own products. Just like Amazon, Google plans on expanding Matter support in the next year.