First Wi-Fi development kit with support for new Matter protocol

Renesas Electronics Corporation now offers its first development kit that comprises support for the new Matter protocol. The company also announced that it would provide Matter support on all future Wi-Fi, BLE and IEEE 802.15.4 (Thread) products, including products from recently acquired Dialog Semiconductor and Celeno Communications.

The Matter protocol promises to solve the interoperability problem for smart home devices. It securely and robustly connects various smart devices across ecosystems, regardless of the manufacturer. Matter is an application layer protocol that abstracts the underlying connectivity technologies, including Wi-Fi, Thread and Bluetooth LE. Using a common software stack, manufacturers who build with Matter will support diverse smart home ecosystems and voice services. Smart home users will be able to purchase any Matter-certified device regardless of their platform of choice.

The company is a member of the global Connectivity Standards Alliance organisation that creates IoT standards and certification. Chris LaPre, head of Technology at the Alliance, said: “We’re delighted to see an IoT leader such as Renesas commit to supporting the Matter standard. It’s another indication of the positive momentum the standard is generating across both device and equipment makers.”

“As the embedded processing leader, connectivity is a critical part of our IoT solutions,” said Sean McGrath, vice president of the Connectivity and Audio Business Division in Renesas’ IoT, Industrial and Infrastructure Business Unit. “With our broad range of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi solutions and Thread products in development, we’re well positioned to take advantage of the Matter standard in a variety of applications working with customers worldwide.”