So far the strides towards making Matter the unifying standard that has been touted by all involved has been less than stellar, with only Apple really making the most meaningful headway since the start. Of those that could be accused of dragging their feet or alternatively treading with caution is Amazon, who, like Google Home, have only allowed Matter devices to be added to their platform via an Android, not iOS.
That all changed today with an update that now allows Matter devices to be added via the Alexa app on iPhone or iPad. Google is currently still the holdout on this regards, but they should follow suit soon enough.
In addition to this small but important step is the official activation of Thread Border Router functionality on the Amazon Echo 4th gen speaker, which according to some reports had already begun to exhibit this functionality at least a month ago. Whether other devices will reveal Thread Border Routers hitherto hidden is not clear at this point. The other thing not clear at this point is whether Matter hubs are now supported, like the Aqara M2, which finally came out of Beta a few days ago.
One interesting perhaps related change from all this is that, for Alexa users who also have an Aqara A100 Zigbee Smart lock, they were previously unable to expose this device to Alexa, with only Google and HomeKit supporting the A100. Now the lock is exposed to Alexa, allowing both locking and unlocking via the Alexa app and via voice control (with Alexa). I’ll have to update this article later to see if it can also be used in routines, however.
With Apple HomeKit, Samsung SmartThing, and now Amazon Alexa all working with Matter across iOS and Android, it just remains for Google to issue its update for full Matter support on iOS.