This week, SwitchBot announced that almost its entire line of smart home devices can now work with Matter through its SwitchBot Hub 2. This includes its mini K10 Plus robot vacuum — one of The Verge’s picks for best robot vacuum — as well as the soon-to-be-launched SwitchBot S10.
Along with Ecovacs’ recently launched Deebot X2 Combo and Roborock’s S8 Max Ultra V (coming April 22nd), there are now a handful of robot vacuums that support Matter. The problem is that none of the smart home platforms support robot vacuums through Matter.
This chicken-and-egg situation is characteristic of the overall frustrations of the Matter rollout to date. Robot vacuums, in particular, are a category many were excited to see come to Matter. Smart home integration for these popular products has been spotty, and there’s been no support in Apple Home at all, just workarounds using Siri shortcuts.
While SwitchBot has found an ingenious workaround to make its robot vacuums work in Apple Home through Matter — it seems to present them as switches in the Apple Home app, so you can start and stop them — the full support offered by Matter isn’t there yet.
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When it does arrive, Matter will let you use your smart home platform of choice to start and stop the robot, adjust cleaning modes (dry vacuum, wet mopping), and receive progress notifications and alerts when the vacuum encounters problems. (Mapping is not supported in Matter, so you’ll still need to use the manufacturer’s app for that.)
Robot vacuum support was added in Matter 1.2, which arrived six months ago, yet the platforms are still working on integrating support for them. Amazon’s Connor Rice tells me, “We’re working on adding support later this year,” and Google’s Taylor Lehman said last year it would add support for more Matter devices but that “this will take time.”
Matter would bring local control — cutting out the cloud connections used by Google Home and Amazon Alexa today. For Apple Home users, Matter support would be the first time you could integrate your robot vacuum into scenes and automations without having to rely on a third-party app.
However, robot vacuums are one of the more complicated devices to be integrated into Matter so far. They do a lot more compared to the binary functions of most Matter device types — on / off, bright / dim, lock / unlock for smart plugs, lightbulbs, smart locks, etc. And this could be part of the holdup. Hopefully, it won’t stump everyone for too long.
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Speaking of more common Matter devices, SwitchBot’s Matter update — which rolled out on April 8th via a firmware upgrade to the SwitchBot Hub 2 — also brings its smart plug, smart lighting, sensors, and almost every other device it makes into Matter (only its cameras aren’t supported). These join its smart lock, curtain, and blind-tilt robots and its signature SwitchBot robot finger in the Matter family.
Additionally, any IR-based device you connect to the SwitchBot Hub 2, such as air conditioners, televisions, lights, and fans, can now also be supported via Matter.
To enable Matter on your SwitchBot devices, you need a SwitchBot Hub 2, which will bridge the devices to the Matter platform. The main benefit of Matter for anyone with SwitchBot products is this now makes them compatible with Apple Home.
SwitchBot products were already compatible with Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Samsung SmartThings via the cloud, but with Matter, the integration will now be local, which should make it more stable and faster.
SwitchBot has two Matter hubs: the $70 SwitchBot Hub 2, which can support up to eight Matter devices, and the new SwitchBot Hub Mini (Matter enabled), which is $60 and is currently only available with its new smart lock. It can support up to four Matter devices.
The company also teased that it’s working on a SwitchBot Universal Remote, a humidifier, and a dehumidifier, all of which will be Matter-compatible. The humidifier will work with the SwitchBot S10 robot vacuum, which has the unique ability to refill the humidifier using its onboard water tank.
What is Matter?
Matter is a new smart home interoperability standard designed to provide a common language for connected devices to communicate locally in your home without relying on a cloud connection. It is built to be secure and private, easy to set up, and widely compatible.
Developed by Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung (and others), Matter is an open-sourced, IP-based connectivity software layer for smart home devices. It works over Wi-Fi, ethernet, and the low-power mesh networking protocol Thread and currently supports over 20 device types. These include lighting, plugs and switches, thermostats, locks, security and environment sensors, refrigerators, dishwashers, smoke alarms, air quality monitors, and more.
A smart home gadget with the Matter logo can be set up and used with any Matter-compatible ecosystem via a Matter controller and controlled by them simultaneously, a feature called multi-admin.
Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, and Apple Home are some major smart home platforms supporting Matter, along with hundreds of device manufacturers.
