By Claus Hetting, WiFi NOW CEO & Chairman
IoT is perhaps the fastest growing segment in Wi-Fi today – and now Wi-Fi Alliance is making it easier and faster for AP vendors to certify their products according to the Matter standard. The new ‘Wi-Fi for Matter’ certification released last week ensures that Wi-Fi APs interoperate with Matter devices as required by the CSA. Wi-Fi Alliance says Matter and Wi-Fi are ‘cornerstone technologies driving the next wave of IoT technology.’
If you’re a Wi-Fi AP vendor looking to certify your products for the Matter IoT standard then you’re in luck because as of last week, Wi-Fi Alliance just made the Wi-Fi part of the certification a lot easier and faster. The new ‘Wi-Fi for Matter’ certification package includes Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 certification plus ‘Extended Sleep’ and two IP proxy features required by the CSA (ARP and NDP, read more here).
Because most Matter-capable devices use Wi-Fi for connectivity, the new certification package is essential to accelerated Matter adoption. “We’re making sure that Wi-Fi APs support the foundational Wi-Fi feature set for Matter, which in particular is critical for battery-operated devices that need to conserve energy with the ‘Extended Sleep’ feature. Ultimately, this will ensure interoperability and therefore also reliability of Wi-Fi-operated Matter devices. It will also shorten time-to-market for Matter-capable APs,” says Kevin Robinson, President & CEO at Wi-Fi Alliance.
The new certification is required but not enough on its own: You still need Matter certification by the CSA (Connectivity Standards Alliance) to be fully certified. Kevin Robinson points out that the collaboration between CSA and Wi-Fi Alliance continues to be excellent. “We share the same vision for the growth of the global IoT ecosystem, and at the same time Wi-Fi and Matter are nearly entirely complementary technologies, each essential for mutual success in wireless IoT,” he says.
Wi-Fi-only onboarding for Matter
Meanwhile the latest Matter release (1.4.2) now supports Wi-Fi-only onboarding of devices using ‘Wi-Fi Unsynchronized Service Discovery’ (read more here). This is a departure from previous releases requiring all Matter devices to incorporate Bluetooth LE radios for onboarding. There can be significant benefits in adopting a Wi-Fi-only strategy for your IoT devices, Kevin Robinson says.
“A great feature of Wi-Fi is its breadth of capabilities, from low bit-rate sensors to multi-gigabit phones. For some vendors it makes a lot of sense to stick to supporting one connectivity technology if only because it’s more efficient. It also makes for simpler devices with only one radio instead of having to incorporate a BLE radio that you may only need once for twenty seconds during onboarding,” he says.
Kevin Robinson points out that in general, vendors are taking a significant risk if they choose not to certify their Wi-Fi products. “There is a real risk that you won’t be able to deliver the excellent connectivity experience that users want and expect. Ultimately, Wi-Fi certification gives you the confidence that you’re building a great product – at least from a connectivity point of view,” he says.
He also says that Wi-Fi Alliance is constantly working on reducing the time and cost of certification, which otherwise can impact project timelines and budgets unfavourably. “Excellent interoperability drives customer satisfaction, which is why certification is so important. But it also shouldn’t burden vendors unnecessarily. We have a number of initiatives ongoing that are aimed towards reducing the certification burden and will release more information on this in coming months,” Kevin Robinson says.
/Claus.
