The Clapper was the first interface challenge that the smart home has faced. When it comes to simple things, such as turning on your smart lights or adjusting the temperature in your home, voice control can be cumbersome and erratic, and sensors are not smart enough to always get it right.
There are many ways to control the smart home, from turning on a single light to triggering a completely automated scene. There is something more robust than smart switches with their limited interface and less obtrusive than smart displays. One way to provide context is by using an interface. Now that Matter has arrived, we may be able to get them.
Now that Matter is here, we may be able to get better control of the smart home.
The board is called the Mui Board. It is a piece of wood that can be used to control your home. The screenless, touch-sensitive wooden display uses light to show information such as the time, weather, or messages for connected devices. When it isn't in use, it's just a piece of wood, not a digital photo frame, or a bright, attention- grabbing display.
The original Mui Board has never been available for consumers to purchase, and it was limited in its integrations. At the Matter launch event in Amsterdam, I got to try out the second generation of the Mui Board. The company will be showcasing its capabilities as a connected controller using Matter at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, and pre-orders for the new Mui Board will begin this June through the crowd-sourced funding website KickStarter. The devices should arrive in November.
Matter is one of the reasons that Mui Labs is able to move quickly. The company doesn't have to build integrations with each platform because of the new smart home interoperability standard. It can work with everyone at a basic level, making it more appealing to consumers and to the third-party device makers.
This is a step towards the ambient smart home that big tech companies have been talking about for a long time. For the smart home to gain mass appeal, it needs more ambient experiences like programming, tinkering, and tech support.
The smart home will be able to anticipate when the lights should be turned on so you don't have to lift a finger. Ambient interface will be important as well. Control is something we will always desire. Touching a wooden panel to turn your lights down, close your curtains, and start your sleep sounds is much less intrusive than issuing a voice command, or opening an app.
A piece of wood isn't the only interface that can provide context and control. Smart home control is expected to include projectors. In the kitchen or bathroom where there is plenty of counter space to use as an interface, a screen that disappears when not needed makes a lot of sense. Amazon's Glow was a good example of how easy it is to use a projector. At the Consumer Electronics Show, Bosch displayed a kitchen projector.
There will be more innovations. Now that Matter has solved the problem of how devices communicate with each other, it will be easier for companies to create more intuitive ways to control those devices.
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