Table of Contents
- Are you quietly losing money and energy because you’re ignoring the game‑changing Matter 1.5 smart home upgrade?
- Matter 1.5 at a glance
- Camera support: standardized, interoperable video
- Unified “closures”: blinds, doors, gates, and more
- Soil sensors: intelligent irrigation and plant care
- Advanced energy and tariff management
- Better EV charging and bidirectional power
- TCP support: handling larger, richer data
- Why Matter 1.5 matters for your smart home strategy
Are you quietly losing money and energy because you’re ignoring the game‑changing Matter 1.5 smart home upgrade?
Matter is a global technical standard designed to make smart home and IoT (Internet of Things) devices from different brands work together reliably, securely, and with local control wherever possible.
It was originally launched in December 2019 as “Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP)” by Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance (now the Connectivity Standards Alliance, CSA), and has since attracted major players such as IKEA, Huawei, and Schneider.
The initial Matter 1.0 specification was released on October 4, 2022, providing a common language for core smart home devices like lights, plugs, sensors, and thermostats.
On October 20, 2025, the Connectivity Standards Alliance introduced Matter 1.5, a significant expansion that adds support for cameras, advanced “closure” devices (such as blinds and garage doors), soil sensors, richer energy management, and more robust transport over TCP.
Matter 1.5 at a glance
Matter 1.5 focuses on broadening the range of supported devices and deepening control and automation capabilities for both consumers and developers. In practical terms, it introduces:
- Native camera support with WebRTC‑based live video and audio streaming.
- A unified model for “closures” such as blinds, curtains, awnings, gates, and garage doors.
- Soil sensor support for intelligent irrigation and plant care.
- Advanced energy and tariff management, including CO₂ and pricing data exchange.
- Better smart meter integration and support for complex time‑of‑use tariffs.
- Certifiable features for modern electric vehicle (EV) charging, including bidirectional charging.
- Full support for operation over TCP to handle large data transfers more efficiently.
For end users, this means more powerful, predictable automations; for manufacturers and developers, it means a standardized path to build and certify richer products without reinventing basic plumbing.
Camera support: standardized, interoperable video
One of the most anticipated additions in Matter 1.5 is native camera support, removing the need for proprietary APIs or custom integrations to bring cameras into major smart home ecosystems.
Developers can now build Matter‑certified cameras that integrate directly with Matter controllers (such as major smart home hubs and voice assistants) in a consistent and secure way.
Key camera capabilities in Matter 1.5 include:
- Live video and audio streaming using well‑established WebRTC technology for low‑latency communication.
- Bidirectional audio to enable features like two‑way talk through doorbell and security cameras.
- Local and remote access using standard STUN and TURN protocols, reducing reliance on vendor‑specific cloud tunnels.
- Multi‑stream configurations, so a single camera can expose, for example, a high‑resolution main stream plus a lower‑resolution preview stream.
- Pan, tilt, and zoom controls, allowing rich control interfaces across different apps and ecosystems.
- Detection and privacy zones, so users can define which parts of the frame are monitored or masked for privacy.
- Flexible storage options, including continuous or event‑based recording to local storage (such as an NVR) or to cloud services.
For users, this translates into more choice of camera brands, less lock‑in, and a more consistent experience across apps when viewing, controlling, and recording from cameras.
Unified “closures”: blinds, doors, gates, and more
Matter 1.5 also revises how “closure” devices are modeled, covering a broad set of products such as blinds, curtains, awnings, gates, and garage doors.
Instead of each manufacturer defining its own complex data model, Matter 1.5 introduces a simplified, modular cluster design to describe different types of movement and configurations.
This modular approach allows manufacturers to represent:
- Various motion types, such as sliding, rotating, opening, or tilting.
- Different panel configurations, including single panel, double panel, or nested mechanisms.
The result is lower development complexity and easier product differentiation, from basic motorized blinds to advanced smart windows with multiple independent sections.
For consumers, this brings:
- More consistent controls across apps and ecosystems for any closure device.
- More precise status reporting (for example, “garage door 25% open”), improving both convenience and security.
- The ability to extend familiar use cases like “Did I close the garage?” or “Are all shutters down?” to a wider range of devices and home layouts.
Soil sensors: intelligent irrigation and plant care
Matter 1.5 introduces official support for soil sensors, opening up richer use cases in gardening, landscaping, and indoor plant care. These sensors can measure soil moisture and, optionally, temperature to keep track of the growing environment for plants, lawns, and garden beds.
When paired with Matter‑compatible water valves or irrigation controllers, soil sensors enable:
- Automated irrigation based on real soil conditions rather than simple timers.
- Smarter water usage that reduces waste and supports sustainability goals.
- Better plant health by avoiding both underwatering and overwatering, especially in climates with variable rainfall.
For homeowners, facilities managers, and even commercial growers, this provides a standards‑based way to build more efficient, data‑driven irrigation systems without locking into a single vendor ecosystem.
Advanced energy and tariff management
Matter 1.5 significantly strengthens the standard’s capabilities around energy management and grid interaction. Devices can now exchange standardized information about:
- Energy prices and tariffs, including time‑of‑use or dynamic tariffs.
- CO₂ emissions associated with current or forecast grid electricity.
- Grid connection properties and capacity limits reported by utilities.
With this data, devices can:
- Estimate and report their actual energy costs and CO₂ footprint, rather than just raw kWh consumption.
- Adjust their operation automatically to user preferences, tariff schedules, or regulatory requirements (for example, shifting loads to cheaper or greener periods).
- Incorporate real‑time or forecast data from on‑site generation sources like residential solar panels into household energy optimization.
Enhanced smart meter support allows devices to interpret complex tariffs, store historical consumption, and present clearer insights into where and when energy is being used. This makes it easier for users and energy management systems to target high‑impact savings opportunities and comply with regional regulations.
Better EV charging and bidirectional power
Matter 1.5 also introduces improvements for electric vehicle charging use cases. Charge status reporting and bidirectional charging (vehicle‑to‑home or vehicle‑to‑grid) can now be made certifiable under the Matter standard.
This helps manufacturers of EV chargers and vehicles align with evolving market requirements, particularly in regions such as the EU where intelligent, flexible charging and grid services are becoming mandatory.
For homeowners, this paves the way for standardized setups where an EV can automatically charge when prices are low or export power when the grid is constrained or tariffs are favorable.
TCP support: handling larger, richer data
Previous Matter versions primarily focused on efficient communication over protocols like UDP, which are excellent for small, frequent messages. Matter 1.5 adds full support for operation over TCP, the transport protocol better suited to larger, more reliable data transfers.
This upgrade benefits:
- High‑bandwidth devices such as cameras streaming video and audio.
- Firmware updates that involve transferring larger binary images quickly and reliably.
- Use cases that require moving bigger data objects, such as images, richer logs, or detailed diagnostics.
For developers, TCP support simplifies the design of devices that need both low‑latency control messages and high‑throughput data channels, while still remaining within the Matter ecosystem.
Why Matter 1.5 matters for your smart home strategy
Matter 1.5 is more than a minor update: it broadens Matter’s scope from basic lights and switches to a richer, more realistic view of modern homes that includes surveillance, access control, energy, water, and mobility. By standardizing critical features like camera streaming, closure control, soil sensing, advanced tariffs, and EV charging, it gives both users and manufacturers a clearer roadmap for building future‑proof, interoperable smart home solutions.
For professionals working in smart home, IoT, energy, or building automation, understanding Matter 1.5 is becoming essential to designing products and systems that will remain competitive and compatible over the next decade.
For consumers, it promises a more stable, secure, and coherent smart home experience—with less fragmentation, more choice, and smarter automation that genuinely saves time, money, and resources.