How Matter & Thread Make Your Home More Helpful
Your home is getting more helpful with Matter and Thread.
New smart home standards mean your devices can be more compatible, more reliable, and more capably connected.
If there’s something you want done around the house – turn the lights down and the music up, open the garage door, or get alerted if a stranger is prowling around your porch – there’s probably a product that can do it.
But sometimes, these smart devices don’t work well together. They can be challenging to set up, or they may require you to add additional gear to your
.That’s beginning to change, thanks to two industry-wide standards: Matter and Thread. Developed by Google and more than a hundred other leading technology companies, Matter makes devices work together across major
, and Thread between them.“I bought my aging parents a
last year but they rarely use it,” says Sujata Neidig, vice president of marketing for Thread Group and marketing director at NXP Semiconductors. “They need a more intuitive home so they can continue to live independently, but without the frustration, cost, and confusion of setting up a smart home. They need things to just work. That’s what Matter and Thread do.”Matter is a common language that allows smart home devices to communicate with each other, even if they aren’t made by the same company. As long as your new smart lock or
carries the Matter logo, you can connect it to Matter-compatible platforms, apps, and assistants. And with just a few taps on your phone, you can add most devices to your home network, , and your favorite apps.“You can think of it as a kind of universal translator,” says Jonathan Hui, vice president of technology for Thread Group and principal software engineer at Google. “With Matter, many of your smart home devices are now speaking the same language.”
Thread is a way for Matter devices to communicate with one another faster, and from farther away. It complements your
, extending its reach and making it more reliable.Thread devices join your home network and connect to the internet through a Thread border router. Just as a
can join Wi-Fi and Ethernet devices into a single network, a Thread border router allows Thread devices to become part of your network. Thread border routers are already built into , the second-gen Nest Hub, Nest Hub Max, the Google TV Streamer (4K), and the Google Home Speaker (coming in spring 2026).So what can you do with Matter and Thread in your own home? The possibilities are endless. Thousands of Matter-enabled devices are already available, and more are rolling out all the time. Just look for the Matter logo.
