Matter with Chris LaPré: The Tech Between Us, Season 3 Episode 2, Part 2

Transcript:

Raymond Yin:
Welcome back to The Tech Between Us. We're continuing our conversation about Matter with Chris LaPré, Chief Technical Officer at the Connectivity Standards Alliance. To catch up on part one of our conversation, visit our Empowering Innovation Together page.

Let's speak a little bit more to our engineer listeners, specifically the ones who are going to be creating these new products. How would an engineer or even a company get started with Matter?

Chris LaPré:
We have open implementation. We call it the SDK. It's sitting right there on GitHub. The whole SDK had been developed in the open, so it's actually been published since January of 2020. We published it and we've been doing everything out in the open in terms of this SDK development. As of October, that was finalized. There is a label you can sync to that is the 1.0 release. You can even see what's going in there for 1.1, that's the first place to look. You can go there and get all the code. For some of the simpler types devices, my team is working on some videos and some documentation for how to go to the more complicated devices or even how to go to manufacture specific devices. The Matter fireplace, for example, if someone's out there that wants to build that Matter fireplace reach out to me about what your fireplace could do.

Raymond Yin:
Like the sine wave?

Chris LaPré:
And then imagine a gif in front of the sine wave. What would you want be burning in your fireplace? You could imagine lots of fun things there, but seriously, we should start doing this. You and I, we can build this tomorrow.

So those kinds of videos are all coming. The SDK's there, you can grab it and you certainly build a light bulb tomorrow. Smart plugs are really easy to go about building. Some of the more complicated devices might take some hoops to jump through. But we're here to help you figure that out. Like I said, we're creating videos and other things to take those steps to more complicated devices. And then also the spec itself is available for download at our website, CSA-IOT.org. As you change that code, you can make sure that you're staying compliant.

That's how you get started. You do need to join to certify devices, but we want that to be the last step you take. If you're just building a light bulb, you should be able to know 100% your light bulb works, it's there, it's solid, how to test it, and everything was all right there. And then when you want to certify that light bulb that's when you can join, certify that device, and then put it to market.

Raymond Yin:
The specification is open source. All the codes, open source. Somebody just goes there, grabs it, downloads it, begins playing with it. When they have something ready to go, they join the org and, and they're off and running. So it seems pretty straightforward.

Chris LaPré:
Just tweak one word there. The spec isn't technically open source. The spec is published to the world. The division is developed under our internal processes, so that you do need to be a member to help us change the spec, but the SDK is open source, so you can make recommendations as you see fit on that side. But then for new device types, you want to join and work with us on the requirements for those new device types. That would be much better done as a member.

Raymond Yin:
Appreciate the clarification. I think that's an important distinction. You mentioned that you were previously, the ZigBee Alliance. Is ZigBee the root of Matter? In other words, do engineers need to know the ins and outs of ZigBee to be able to design for Matter?

Chris LaPré:
Not the ins and outs of ZigBee. ZigBee is a full stack 802.15.4 at the bottom right. What we call the ZigBee cluster library or the data model,at the top right. Matter as it is today has nothing to do with ZigBee as a networking standard. Matter supports Wi-Fi and Thread. Thread is related to ZigBee, and then it's also 802.15.4, but it is IP right routing with 15.4 underneath. And there's a Thread group that's responsible for that, that's separate from us. But then the data model on top, the ZigBee cluster library is the basis for what Matter uses. In terms of how we structure what a device type is and what that device type can do, there is a strong similarity to what ZigBee does there, but we have made some enhancements to that. We're also porting back to ZigBee, so it is still the same data model. I certainly wouldn't say if you don't know ZigBee and you want and learn Matter, you don't need to learn ZigBee first. You can just learn Matter.

Raymond Yin:
Just jump right into Matter?

Chris LaPré:
Yeah, but if you do know ZigBee already, then certainly jumping into Matter that knowledge will help you, and even more so if you already know Wi-Fi and you already know Thread. Those three pieces of knowledge will certainly carry forward into your Matter experience.

Raymond Yin:
You had mentioned 802.15.4 as the foundation for Matter. Where does Matter fit within that OSI model? What levels does the stack live?

Chris LaPré:
802.15.4 is the basis for ZigBee and Thread. Matter lives above UDP, so above three and relies on some other transport. Right now what we support is Wi-Fi and Thread for UDP transport. We do not support TCP right now. Matter is basically everything above that. It doesn't really fit nicely with the OSI model because there's no user experience layer and layers five, six, and seven are all sort of muddled here because it's the button or door lock, is the interface. We want that interface to mimic what people are used to as a door lock. I think there are some companies that are thinking oh, we can reinvent the door lock or we can reinvent the thermostat, but presently it's what you're used to. That's the whole interface layer. What is that top layer?

Raymond Yin:
The application layer.

Chris LaPré:
Yeah, that is hardware in most of our cases or something with the phone is implementing on the controller side.

Raymond Yin:
So, it's an app or something like that? You interface to those, but you're not part of the design?

Chris LaPré:
Not directly. But we do have really tight alliances with both the Thread group and the Wi-Fi Alliance and in both cases we've given them some feedback about what we want for IoT devices. They've been very responsive. We're really excited about the work, they've finished up, and we're working to add in terms of battery support on the Thread side. And then pairing support on the Wi-Fi side. All of that is quite a ways out on our engineering roadmap. But it has, like I said, been a really great interaction with both of those group to get where we are today and where we're seeing the future.

Raymond Yin:
So really the foundation for new stuff is all in place and it's just waiting to get on the train at some point in time.

Chris LaPré:
Yep, exactly.

Raymond Yin:
You mentioned working groups earlier. What working groups do you currently have going on in the CSA? Are there specific topics that you're tackling, for example, security?

Chris LaPré:
Bear with me on this one. It’s going to take a couple minutes.

Raymond Yin:
Absolutely take as much time as you need.

Chris LaPré:
We still have ZigBee, that is its own working group. They're working on a new version for ZigBee R23. We mentioned Matter and we have a data model in the middle. Like I said, we're sharing that data model. So, there is a working group that's in the middle. It's mostly just governance to make sure we don't diverge and get out of sync in one place or another. So, that's three working groups that are pretty central on the engineering side of things. But then, Matter was our solution for the interoperability problem when we were at that hive event a couple years ago looking at what were the things stopping people from running out and buying hundreds of devices to stick in their homes?

Interoperability was the first one. The second one was, as you mentioned, product security. The fear of some device in their home being hacked such that they could be spied upon or that could be used to launch botnets. Over a year ago we announced a product security working group. That working group is just finishing the first part of their 1.0 process. They're validating a feature set. So later this year, hopefully, we'll be releasing a product security standard based on mostly external standards. So ETSI has a 303645 standard, and NIST has a standard for products. We'll be adhering to those standards but having a certification program and a labeling program where consumers can look at our device, see the label on it, and say, yep, that meets the standard there.

That's not to say it's an unhackable device. There's always an arms race in product security, but that meets these sets of bars. The standard - does it have a well-known password that the consumer can't change? Well, that's not allowed. That's part of the ETSI standard. You can't do that and so that's one of our tests. You can't do that and if you do that, you can't meet our standard. So it really is just setting the bar at a really nice high level so that consumers can be confident that yes, it meets the bar. But then also ongoing, like if something goes wrong with your product and you don't meet the bar anymore, we can help you convey to consumers that you do meet the bar with this new version of firmware or something like that.

That's product security. And then the next one that stops people from buying things is privacy, data privacy. Now you have some products sending data into your network. What are you doing with that? So we have another working group that's based on data privacy, and that is literally just getting underway. We're running elections now for the leadership of that group. I have visions as to what it would be. We're in the rough estimate of what we're planning on. It is basically like a nutrition label for what you do with my data once you have it. That way it's apples to apples comparison of what you do with my data, not a 30-page legal document that no one ever reads.

And there's be no way to compare one company's 30-page legal document with someone else's 30-page legal document for a consumer. But if there's a nutrition label that says, I do X, Y, and Z with your data, and I will never do A, b, and C with your data, now I can start to compare those with the same language. We're trying to work with manufacturers such that they all use the same language to explain these things so that it really is an apples comparison. I shouldn't be saying apples…a direct comparison from one side to another in terms of what you can do or what the company is purporting to do with your data. And then also have a barcode to come back to more information, deeper information that consumers might not be concerned about when they're at the store buying something. But, oh, let me scan the barcode now that I'm home and see some further information like, oh, there was a security breach two years ago and here's how they mitigated that. So that's great. That kind of information could be in a barcode. Do you have any questions on that, by the way?

Raymond Yin:
No, I think just that having a common language amongst almost 300 members now? Is it over 300 members now?

Chris LaPré:
Right, and just to be clear, it is a separate working group, and so members do need to opt in to a working group. Not all members have opted in, but you're right. I believe, as head of technology of this alliance, that these are three, cross-cutting technologies: interoperability, product security and data privacy. Right now, they have to be kept separate because they’re all not done. We can't say, company X, you have to commit to whatever we do two years from now on the privacy side. But once we're done, I believe that, because we're member driven, because we're consensus driven, we'll have three good solutions across the board. Then companies will be able to say, yes, I commit to all three of these, and now you can be really clear about what I'm going to do with your data. You can be clear about how I'm protecting your devices, and you can be clear about the interoperability promise that you have at that lowest level of, do your devices work together. And those three things, I think are extremely important to building up this IoT space, particularly in smartphones.

Raymond Yin:
Absolutely, and for me personally, to your point earlier, I’ve been holding back a little bit just because of security and privacy issues. I don't want the speakers listening to me, listening into my every conversation and broadcasting it - who knows where. It sounds like there really is a plan, or even the beginnings of a plan in place for a kind of a consolidated security and privacy rules that when everybody chooses to be Matter compliant, the consumer will know that these things are in place.

Chris LaPré:
Right, and just to be crystal clear, there's still three separate tracks. Matter is not tied to these other projects particularly. But in the future, when they're all done it might be three different logos, but they are three tracks today. But where you're going is these are three problems that people are concerned about in their home. And yes, we are trying to solve all three of those problems to help people have confidence buying devices, putting them in their homes, and using them. I do still have two more working groups too, to get back to that question, but if you have any more questions on privacy, we should clear those up.

Raymond Yin:
No, I think having that common role set is important because, to your point, you go from company A to company B. They both claim, yes, we have this level of security, this level of privacy, yet they're saying completely different things in their documents or apparently completely different things in their documents.

Chris LaPré:
Right, that's at least the problem description that we're starting to dig into.

Raymond Yin:
Terrific, so more working groups?

Chris LaPré:
With those three sort of cross-cutting technologies, we have three working groups focused on. We also have access control which is not necessarily a consumer facing technology, but is an interoperability and fragmentation problem that we're seeing in the market. So we started a working group. Right now, most radios, in fact all radios, I'm aware of that are used in door locks are tied to a particular technology stack and a particular certificate. Any smartphone today that has two or three radios that can open up a door lock, they have to have two or three certificates and two or three technology stacks. That's a lot of engineering work to support basically just one user of the phone unlocking a couple of different doors and that includes hotel doors, the instant keys and those kinds of things.

And so we're trying to simplify all that with a single certificate, single technology stack that can support multiple radios. That, like I said, is not necessarily a consumer facing technology today, at least. It might be in the future, but that's another working group we've had going for over a year now as well. They should have some announcements later this year, early next year as well. The last one, we already mentioned, energy management. I'd just like to highlight energy management here. As far as these cross-cutting technologies all sort of fits within Matter. None of those new device types we talked about, vehicle chargers or water heaters needs more security than a door lock does.

But our newest working group is health and wellness. This one will certainly create Matter devices. If there's a new health and wellness device that's coming in your home, it will use the Matter protocol. But in order for there to be true hospital at home support on top of Matter, we really need to solve a lot of other problems as well that Matter's not looking to solve. In the United States, at least HIPAA compliance of data. If I'm talking to my doctor via video chat and he says, oh, I mailed you that thing to put on your finger. Can you please put it on your finger? It's going send me data. That data has to be protected by HIPAA because it's a doctor collecting data on my behalf.

My personal medical data that they're taking care of. If I put something on myself - Fitbit or some other health tracker, that's my data. I'm collecting it myself. I can do whatever I want with that data - that's not HIPPA. But, if a doctor's interacting with me, and that's where we would like to go with health and wellness in the long run, we do need to solve a lot of other problems. Basically privacy up to the HIPAA level, and other countries have different levels of HIPAA compliance. It's not US-centric, it's a worldwide standard that we're hoping to create. That's on the far end of the roadmap. And on the near end of the roadmap, we're really focusing on aging in place as something that we feel Matter today, could solve.

Your appliances, let's say your aging mother, I don't know if she lives alone or not, but, if you're concerned about her during the day, you can basically keep track of her or better yet, not keep track of her.  Her home can just keep track and say, yes, she woke up on time. I don't need to tell Raymond anything. She's walking around just like she did yesterday. She opened the fridge, she made her coffee, everything's great. But then, as soon as she starts slowing down a little bit, or if she's fallen, certainly right away, or she hasn't gotten up, an hour later than usual, they can maybe send you a little notification saying, hey, something's amiss here. Maybe you should just text her, check on her. Or do whatever you want to do with what the level of concern is. All those devices we already have in place, the motion sensors, the door locks, the appliances we talked about, all of that is how we can get a lot of information on aging in place. And then the example that some people keep mentioning to me, if someone has fallen, they can't get up and have a smart door lock. When the emergency service is on the other side of the door, unlock the door and not have them break down that door to get through. Those sorts of things. Again, a door lock is something we already have. So, there’s increasing levels of care, early discharge or monitoring of glucose, persistent care.

Raymond Yin:
Aging in place, that is brilliant. Just having the experience of my mom. She does live alone. Luckily my brother's close, but to have the technology to be able to unobtrusively keep track of her. We don't want to put anybody in her house, but yeah, of course, at this age, we're a little concerned at times.

Chris LaPré:
And she should have privacy too, right? You don't want cameras all over her house where if something's wrong, you pop on a camera and you’re spying. This is much lower key than that. Just notify me if something's amiss. And now with all these machine learning algorithms, they can do a really great job at detecting what is a meaningful discrepancy versus a non-meaningful discrepancy.

Raymond Yin:
That is brilliant. And what's good, you have access to all these devices. They're already part of the Matter ecosystem. So, you're not requiring anybody do anything different. Simply, it's a service or it's something that you could offer as part of being Matter compliant.

Chris LaPré:
Yeah, it's a new device type or a new feature that a device type can support. We're really excited about aging in place. And like I mentioned, your energy management and healthcare. Those are two problems that governments are starting to face more and more. Around the world and different capacities, in different countries, of course, but the energy crisis and then also the healthcare crisis. It's a good time for the alliance to be thinking about these, and in a place where hopefully with the ubiquity of Matter, we can try to help solve those problems.

Raymond Yin:
Right. And you've got, from what I can tell, pretty much every major technology company behind you in this.

Chris LaPré:
I call it adoption promise. It’s certainly what's given us as much of a voice as we have today. And then, moving into these two particularly big problems that the world is facing. I think those two things together are really why it's just so important to get Matter out there and to make sure it's well received and launches properly so that we can really start to go after those big problems with the right foot forward.

Raymond Yin:
Let’s take a look into the future. Our next question is brought to us by our sponsored partner, Texas Instruments, who, is providing engineers with the right connectivity products for Matter-compliant designs. Explore more from them by visiting mouser.com/Texas-Instruments.

So, Chris, we've talked a lot about health and wellness, which once again, I think that's absolutely brilliant. We've talked about energy management. What other areas do you see Matter making a real difference?

Chris LaPré:
One area that I'm pretty excited about is TVs and speakers. Basically audio content, video content in the home. Right now, we do support TV as a device type. You can turn the volume up, turn the volume down, the basic remote control stuff, as well as place some content. You can envision that, especially with the interactions from, doorbell, cameras and white goods appliances, basically popping up on your TV and playing some pre-canned, your washer cycle's done.

Raymond Yin:
Sound or it's a notification audio?

Chris LaPré:
Or video notification. But you can start to imagine that going in lots of other places as well. One example that someone asked me about, it was someone else's idea, not mine but I adopted it because it's really cool… you go into a hotel and you see a Matter barcode and you scan that in your Netflix app, for example. Netflix is not a member, but some content provider that you're listening to on your phone. And then boom, that content starts playing on the TV. You're logged in via that interaction, but then you automatically get logged out afterwards. I think that's one of the big reasons I would never log in on an app, on a TV screen in a hotel room, because I know I would forget to log myself out. Who knows what purchases would happen on my account afterward. As well as speakers just playing content around your house, choosing which speaker to play this audio on as people move around the home. All of that are things that Matter could do. All of those speakers start to support Matter in terms of content, not on the smart side of the speaker in terms of the voice control, but on the content of what they're playing. I think that's a really rich area for Matter. Again, it's expanding what the smart home is. Today it's typically command and control device - devices like door locks and thermostats. I really think that sort of content and lights, I think are going to fit into that content too. As you move around, the home content will follow you, sort of like the old Bill Gates home that he designed 30 years ago.

Raymond Yin:
I remember that.

Chris LaPré:
All that sort of stuff is, I think, becoming more and more possible now, and a ubiquitous standard. Like Matter could really make that kind of thing really common.

Raymond Yin:
That's really interesting. Because it sounds like you're talking about taking your home with you from a content perspective. If you're going to a hotel, you're taking your content, whatever content you're watching in your house that's attached to the various systems, can go with you. And you have complete access to it no matter where you are.

Chris LaPré:
You just reminded me of another. Cars is another one of course. As I go into the car, the music should follow me into the car. My thermostat preferences can follow me into the car. Those kinds of things as well as showing that I'm not in the house anymore. So, occupancy information like we talked about earlier in the energy management side of things.

Raymond Yin:
Interesting. I love it! Once the connection is there, all things suddenly become possible.

Chris LaPré:
Yeah, Bob Metcalfe created MetCast rule. In terms of the value of the network, in terms of the number of devices, square the number of places. I think Matter really starts to tap that potentially as you have a single ecosystem controlling all of the devices in your home, or at least, more and more devices connected onto a single network.

Raymond Yin:
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Tech Between Us. This podcast is part of Mouser’s in-depth look at Matter. You can explore our entire Empowering Innovation Together content series for videos, technical articles, and more at mouser.com/empowering-innovation.

Commercial:
As the first company to provide a working demonstration of Matter connectivity, Texas Instruments is at the forefront in providing engineers with the right products for their designs and development of the protocol. To learn more, visit mouser.com/texas-instruments.