New Home Assistant Update Includes Matter 1.3 and AI Automation

A collection of new features have been unveiled in Home Assistant 2024.6, which boasts various improvements and the inclusion of Matter 1.3. The Spring 2024 revision of Matter adds various smart home interoperability enhancements, which are now supported in the new Home Assistant release.

Matter 1.3 Comes to Your Home

Home Assistant is an open source home automation platform, so this development is pretty significant. At the time of writing, none of the "major" smart home systems have updated to Matter 1.3.

The Home Assistant 2024.6 update features a whole host of revisions. Key among these is support for Matter 1.3 and upgraded voice control. This enables cloud-based conversation agents such as OpenAI to control devices, with the option to enable or restrict these in the app settings.

For users of Matter-compatible smart home equipment, Home Assistant 2024.6 brings support for new device types, improvements for already-supported devices, and network optimization, particularly for Thread devices.

The Home Assistant update was first issued on Wednesday, June 5th, 2024. With progress comes waste, so be sure to check with device manufacturers before installing the Home Assistant 2024.6 update. If it results in any features or smart home hardware you own becoming incompatible, you may prefer not to upgrade until a replacement can be found. Alternatively, you can roll back your Home Assistant version until your smart home setup is ready for the upgrade.

What Are The Key Features in Matter 1.3?

Matter offers key improvements to its specification with version 1.3 (released on May 8th, 2024). These include support for new items:

• Smart Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE).
• Energy management.
• Water management.
• Laundry appliance support.
• Kitchen appliances (microwaves, standard ovens, cooktops, and hoods).

Matter 1.3 also adds improvements to Matter-compatible robot cleaners and the video casting system, Matter Casting. Our look at Matter 1.3 features covers this in more detail.

Future Simplification

Home Assistant is one of the first home automation platforms to upgrade to Matter 1.3. At the time of writing, HomeKit, SmartThings, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa have either not rolled out the Matter 1.3 update, or it is incomplete.

As an open source home automation platform, Home Assistant has taken the lead with Matter 1.3 adoption. We can only expect that the "big names" in the smart home market will be releasing their updates soon.