With the official launch of Matter today, Amazon has announced that Matter support will be added to an impressive 17 of its Echo devices beginning in December. Unfortunately, the initial availability of Matter for Amazon will be pretty limited:
- Only Matter is supported via WiFi; Thread is not.
- Android-only compatibility only.
- Smart switches, smart bulbs, and smart plugs are the only accessory types supported.
Realclobber reports that Amazon plans to expand the rollout to iOS and Thread early next year. And as well as support for additional accessory categories.
In an interview, Chris DeCenzo, a senior principal engineer at Amazon and a member of the company’s CSA board, said, “We’re bringing Matter support to well over 100 million devices across 30 Echo and Eero devices.” And the scope and complexity of this endeavor are unprecedented. We have to make sure everything goes as planned because it’s essential.
Additionally, according to DeCenzo, “Apple requires apps to use new APIs that just became available”. Which is the reason for the delay of an iOS Matter-compatible Alexa app. Further, he claims that before making the integration available, they want to test it.
The complete list of Amazon devices that now support Matter is as follows: Echo Dot (fifth-gen), Echo Dot (fifth-gen) with Clock, Echo (fourth-gen), Echo Dot (third-gen, 2018 release), Echo Studio, Echo Show 8 (second-gen, 2021 release), Echo Show 10 (third-gen), Echo Show 5 (second-gen, 2021 release), Echo Dot (third-gen) with Clock, Echo Show 5 (second-gen), Echo Do.
These devices will be able to function as “Matter controllers”. This means adding any Matter-compatible accessory to the Amazon app for Alexa control.
