Today, the hottest focus in the smart home industry is Matter. Co-sponsored by Apple, Amazon, and Google giants, Samsung, Philips, Huawei, Lumi, IKEA, and Ou Ruibo have joined.

What exactly is Matter?
What kind of value can Matter bring?
What does it have to do with Zigbee, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi?

Matter is built on a shared belief that smart home devices should be safe, reliable and seamless to use. By building on Internet Protocol (IP), Matter will support communication between smart home devices, mobile applications and cloud services, and define a specific set of IP-based network technologies for device authentication.

Matter is creating more connections between more smart products, simplifying development for manufacturers and increasing compatibility between smart products. Remove the "wall" of smart home interoperability and break through the barriers. That is, devices that support Matter can join the network formed by Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

With the delay in the release of the standard, in the fall of 2022, the Connectivity Standards Alliance plans to officially launch its latest standard, Matter, a common language and IP-based protocol for the Internet of Things. Products that follow the Matter standard will have a unique logo indicating interoperability with certified Matter products from any manufacturer.

What does Matter have to do with Zigbee, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi?

To understand the relationship between Matter and Zigbee, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, we have to first understand the OSI seven-layer network model.

The OSI seven-layer network model, from high to low, is: application layer, presentation layer, session layer, transport layer, network layer, data link layer, and physical layer.

To simplify, the session layer and presentation layer are merged into the application layer, and the data link layer and physical layer are merged into the bottom layer to form a new network model: application layer, transport layer, network layer, bottom layer.
picture

The application layer is Matter, the transport layer is TCP/UDP, the network layer is IPv6, and the bottom layer is IPv6-adapted protocols (Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Thread, etc.).
It can be seen that Matter is an application layer protocol based on the transport layer, which relies on underlying protocols such as Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Thread.

Both Zigbee and Bluetooth are low-level protocols that do not adapt to IPv6, such as ZigBee, which specifies the required low-level protocols, a dedicated network layer/transport layer, and a dedicated application layer.
picture
Matter, Zigbee and Bluetooth are mutually exclusive protocols and cannot coexist.

To sum up, Matter is dependent on Wi-Fi, and mutually exclusive with Zigbee and Bluetooth.