By Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman
The ink is hardly dry on version 1.0 of the matter standard and Google has already pounced on it: On Tuesday of this week Google released the Wi-Fi 6E version of their Google Nest consumer-grade router dubbed Google Nest Wi-Fi Pro and the system includes matter IoT capability. Matter 1.0 was released by the CSA on the same day. What all of this means to smart home IoT and to Wi-Fi in particular we have yet to discover.
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The Google Nest is arguably one of the most successful Wi-Fi mesh products of all time – probably selling by the tens of millions of units (although this is a guess) – and now Google Nest is finally ready for Wi-Fi 6E: On Tuesday of this week Google announced that the Google Nest Wi-Fi Pro is now available for pre-order. The new system is Wi-Fi 6E-capable and Google says it also includes ‘matter capability’.
The Google Nest Wi-Fi Pro features a new and smoother-looking egg-shaped design. A three-pack of the new mesh system will retail for US$399.99 in the US and Google has already this week opened up for pre-orders. The new system will be available in US stores by end of this month, Google says. Google hasn’t said anything about their choice of chipset platform but we’d be darned if it were not provided by a company whose name starts with a capital Q.
So what will matter mean to the Wi-Fi industry? We’ve asked the world’s leading matter experts to join us on October 18 for a Wi-Fi NOW Special Event. Don’t miss it – click here to register now.
For home IoT and Wi-Fi aficionados the fact that Google is embracing Wi-Fi 6E is of course both great news and largely expected, although probably earlier than expected. Meanwhile perhaps the more exciting news – although we’re not sure just yet what it means in practice – is that Google Nest Wi-Fi Pro is ready for ‘matter’. So what exactly does that mean?
For the immediate short term it probably doesn’t mean a great deal because an ecosystem still has to evolve around the standard. On the other hand Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) – the organisation leading the matter standardisation work – says it is ready to certify matter devices, which in theory means that the first matter-interoperable IoT devices and systems could be made available soon. It also appears that the CSA is heading up a launch event for matter on November 3.
According to The Verge – read their excellent coverage here – Google has announced that all its Nest smart speakers and displays will be upgraded to be Matter controllers and that Amazon has said something similar about their devices. At Wi-Fi NOW we will be following this closely.
/Claus.
