Last month, smart home product manufacturer TP-Link announced that it had received Matter certification. Going forward, this means product lines from both Kasa and the newer Tapo will begin introducing Matter-certified products in the new year.
The first of these products to hit the shelves in 2023 will be a new smart plug, which has already passed UL testing for North America, and one which will most likely use WiFi, given that almost their entire lineup of products utilises WiFi anyway, with no mention of protocols like Thread or Zigbee. Following this, the company then plan to release a new power strip, smart switches, smart bulbs, and even a smart home hub that will allow its sensors that are not Matter-compatible to be exposed to Matter, much in the way that companies like Philips Hue and Aqara have planned for their current Zigbee hubs. In addition, the separate Tapo and Kasa apps will also be updated to work with Matter.
Whilst TP-Link’s brands tend to focus on staple products like smart power and lighting, the company has stated plans to expand upon this lineup, once the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) begins to incorporate more device categories into the Matter standard, which would include product like robot vacuums, video doorbells, and security cameras, the latter two of which are already considered standard categories within Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant.