Matter has received a boost today, with the announcement that the Nest Thermostat (2020) will support the new smart home standard from April 18th.
This marks the first smart thermostat to support Matter, enabling users of the Nest Thermostat to work with Apple Home without using workarounds like HomeBridge. The update will make the thermostat compatible with any Matter smart home platform using Matter over Wi-Fi, with the rollout due to be completed within the next few weeks.
With Matter Nest users can adjust things like the mode, temperature (obviously), and fan speeds through the Apple Home app, as well as use Siri, Alexa, Samsung SmartThings, as well as Google Home as is already the case of course. Additionally, it means that users will finally be able to take advantage of HomeKit’s superior automation options, which is something lacking in the Google Home ecosystem.
The bad news for some is that the update will only apply to the newer Nest Thermostat released in 2020. Google has hinted that it may bring Matter to both the Nest Learning Thermostat and Nest Thermostat E at some point, but this is still a good step in the right direction for Google, who, like Amazon, appear to be a little behind when it comes to Matter adoption so far.