Matter speakers could stream music and tell you when the wash is done

Matter, the smart home standard designed to connect and control all your smart home devices, could soon support speakers. Chris LaPré, CTO of the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), which runs Matter, confirmed to The Verge that “a new streaming speaker device type and related controls” is under development.

As part of Matter, speakers could leverage the device-to-device communication enabled by the standard to send you an alert when someone rings your doorbell, notify you when your washing is done, or sound alarms when a smoke detector is triggered. Additionally, Matter support could allow you to play music on any Matter-enabled speaker from any Matter-enabled app regardless of the ecosystem or brand, according to Fiede Schillmoeller, CEO of Legato, the company leading the group developing the spec.

However, it may be a while until we see any of these benefits, as there are several hoops to jump through before speakers become part of the standard. “It’s too early to put a timeline to when these will make it into the specification or what the full capabilities will be,” said LaPré.

But what about Apple’s HomePods or Echo speakers, those support Matter? Yes and no. Smart speakers like HomePods, Echo devices, and Google’s Nest speakers are Matter controllers, not Matter device types. This means they connect to and control Matter devices in their ecosystems but can’t be controlled by other Matter devices and ecosystems. This is why you can’t use an Amazon Echo Show to turn down the volume on a Google Nest speaker or have your HomePod announce that your Matter-enabled washing machine is done.

Technically, speakers have been in Matter since it launched, falling under Media Device Types. But this part of the spec largely supports TVs and video streaming devices, not dedicated audio speakers, and the controls are very limited — just on / off and volume control.

Now, the CSA is looking to add a specific device type for streaming speakers — like those from Sonos, Bose, Marshall, and others, whose main purpose is streaming music over Wi-Fi — to create a more ambient notification system for Matter devices. “We want smart homes to have this ambient information stream to tell you about things that are happening that it knows about, and speakers are a big enabler of that,” said LaPré.

While Matter Casting, which is already part of the spec, can control media and send push messages from Matter devices such as washing machines and robot vacuums to smart displays and TVs, this doesn’t translate directly to speakers. “There are use cases that need to be addressed to enable Matter Casting on smart speakers,” said Chris DeCenzo, a senior principal engineer at Amazon who worked on the casting spec. “For example, smart speakers don’t have an app framework like smart TVs do, and rely on URL-based casting to play content.”

Legato, the company behind the effort to bring speakers to Matter, is a startup out of Amsterdam whose founders include Sonos and Apple alumni with a “deep knowledge of wireless speakers, software engineering, and user experience,” Schillmoeller told The Verge in an exclusive interview.

Legato is working with CSA member companies that are speaker manufacturers, software makers, ecosystems, and content providers, said Schillmoeller. The group is “fully focused on making audio and speakers work through Matter,” he said. While he declined to name names, he said, “It includes everyone you would want in that group.” (It’s worth noting that both Sonos and Bose are members of the CSA.)

The specifics of how speakers will work are still under development, so Schillmoeller couldn’t share exact details, but he confirmed that the team is building something that will handle “all the important stuff.”

This should include choosing your audio source, controlling volume and full transport controls, “play, pause, skip … all these things that help you control the speaker from any device you like,” he said. If implemented, this would mean you could control any Matter speaker from any Matter-supported ecosystem app, such as Apple Home, Alexa, Google Home, and Home Assistant. 

Schillmoeller also hopes the team can integrate speakers with your smart home through scenes. “You should be able to use your smart home to drive speaker behavior,” he said. “Set what type of music plays in the morning when you wake up, what happens to your speaker when you leave the house, what happens to the audio when someone rings your doorbell.” Functions like these are available in smart home ecosystems today but are limited to proprietary software and hardware. 

What Matter probably won’t do is enable multiroom music, a feature likely to remain at the ecosystem level. Additionally, don’t hold out hope that Apple and Google, and possibly Amazon, will enable their speakers as Matter device types. While it’s technically possible with Matter, controlling your Apple HomePod from your Google Nest Hub just doesn’t feel likely. I’d love to be proven wrong, though. 

All three companies have been bullish about Matter as an industry collaboration, but I can see Apple and Google drawing the line at making their speakers interoperable with competitors outside of their ecosystems. However, Amazon may be more open to the idea, as it has already implemented Matter Casting for its Prime Video service as a nonproprietary alternative to AirPlay and Chromecast for streaming video. 

Considering that all three already have multiroom music platforms that work with speakers from different manufacturers and lucrative music streaming services to protect, the consumer benefit for Matter speakers seems more likely to come from third-party manufacturers. 

A new platform for smart speakers

With streaming speakers as a device type in Matter, the playing field widens for more manufacturers to be a conduit for these alerts and notifications from your smart home while also doing what you want your speakers to do: play music. 

This is what Legato is betting on. The company has developed LegatoXP, a software platform that can power “smart” speakers. Schillmoeller said LegatoXP provides a way to connect speakers from different brands to enable multiroom music and support for multiple smart home ecosystems through Matter. 

Think of it as AirPlay or Google Cast but without the need for proprietary hardware. Manufacturers can license the LegatoXP software from the company and build it into their existing hardware or opt to build a smart speaker from the ground up using compatible chipsets, explained Schillmoeller.

LegatoXP runs on a real-time operating system (RTOS) architecture. Commonly used in IoT devices like smart lights and switches, RTOS is an alternative to Linux, which is required in Wi-Fi smart speakers today. Its advantage is that it’s more lightweight, uses less power, and is much cheaper, said Schillmoeller. Cost-wise, it’s closer to that of battery-powered Bluetooth speakers while allowing for more bandwidth, which is better for audio.

Schillmoeller, who was at Sonos for 15 years and helped build the Ikea Sonos partnership, has been developing Legato since Matter launched in 2022. “We’ve spent the past two years talking to speaker manufacturers, understanding their business, and saw that these complex smart speakers have started to sabotage the overall experience of music,” he said. The core idea is to simplify the “smart” side for manufacturers so they can continue to focus on developing good speakers. 

“We’re not trying to convince Apple or Google to change course on their devices, but if you’re an individual speaker brand, it’s incredibly hard to compete with the subsidized devices currently flooding the market,” he said. With big tech companies using profits from ad sales and phone hardware to subsidize the production of their smart speakers, Schillmoeller thinks speaker manufacturers are in a lose-lose position. “You’d like to make your speakers smarter, but that costs money,” he said. Legato offers a way to do it for less.

If Legato can help companies make cheaper, low-powered Wi-Fi speakers that work across ecosystems, we could start to see inexpensive smart speakers from companies not called Amazon and Google. This could open up the smart home beyond the big four platforms.

Schillmoeller is confident Legato’s tech will help manufacturers build this new breed of smart speakers — and sell them for prices similar to Bluetooth speakers, possibly as low as $25. He hopes this will help democratize whole home audio by taking it out of the purview of high-end, expensive speakers and ad-subsidized hardware. “Matter is the catalyst for some of this change,” he said. “It’s opening an opportunity to launch things to a wide range of people without needing to build some of the critical infrastructure ourselves.”