Matter 1.5 Finally Brings Cameras to the Standard — but the Smart Home Is Still Fragmented

Matter was supposed to fix the smart home. When the Connectivity Standards Alliance launched Matter 1.0 in October 2022 — backed by Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, and over 500 companies — the promise was a universal interoperability standard where any Matter-certified device would work with any Matter-compatible controller, regardless of which ecosystem you lived in.

Three and a half years later, Matter has made genuine progress and created new complications simultaneously. The November 2025 release of Matter 1.5 finally brought cameras and video doorbells into the standard — the most-requested device category since launch, notably absent from all four previous versions. The implementation reality, as of mid-2026, is instructive about where the smart home standard actually stands.

What Each Matter Version Added

Understanding Matter 1.5's significance requires context on the progression. Matter 1.0 (October 2022) covered lighting, plugs, switches, locks, thermostats, and window blinds. Matter 1.1 (May 2023) added robotic vacuums and cleaned up specification ambiguities. Matter 1.2 (October 2023) brought major appliances: refrigerators, dishwashers, laundry machines, and smoke and CO detectors. Matter 1.3 (May 2024) added EV chargers, water valves, water heaters, and microwave ovens.

Cameras were notably absent from all of these, despite being the most common smart home device category. The delay was technical: video streaming introduces significantly more complexity than the on/off commands and sensor readings that earlier Matter versions handled. Video requires codec negotiation, stream initiation protocols, buffering management, and real-time data handling that didn't fit cleanly into Matter's existing architecture. Getting it right took the CSA an additional two versions beyond what many expected.

Matter 1.5, finalized November 20, 2025, introduced a new device type specification covering cameras, video doorbells, and intercoms. A maintenance release (Matter 1.5.1) followed on March 31, 2026, addressing specification ambiguities surfaced during early implementations. The spec is solid. The ecosystem support is another matter.

The June 2026 Reality

As of early June 2026, Samsung SmartThings is the only major smart home controller platform to have shipped Matter 1.5 camera support. Apple Home, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa — the three largest platforms by installed base — have confirmed Matter 1.5 camera support is in development but have not released it to general users.

This pattern is consistent with how previous Matter versions rolled out. Matter 1.2 shipped in October 2023, but most major platforms took six to twelve months to implement the new appliance device types from that release. The CSA ratifies the specification; platform implementations follow on their own timelines, which consistently trail the specification by months or more.

Homebridge 2.0, released in May 2026, added native Matter support — enabling Apple HomeKit users to bridge non-Matter and Matter devices through Homebridge and expose them to other Matter controllers. This is a genuinely useful capability for users in mixed ecosystems, but running Homebridge requires a always-on host (Raspberry Pi, Mac mini, or similar), which is not the frictionless consumer experience the Matter standard was designed to deliver.

Where Matter Is Working Well

The fragmentation criticism shouldn't obscure what's actually working. For device categories that Matter has fully supported since version 1.0 — smart bulbs, plugs, switches, thermostats, and door locks — Matter interoperability functions as promised across all major platforms. An Aqara Matter lock added to Apple Home can also be controlled via Google Home and Amazon Alexa without additional setup. A Nanoleaf Matter light strip added to Google Home works in Apple Home simultaneously. Thread-based Matter devices across these categories have a strong reliability track record.

Thread itself has matured significantly. Thread border routers are now built into Apple HomePod mini, Apple TV 4K, Google Nest Hub (2nd gen), Amazon Echo (4th gen), and Samsung SmartThings Hub — which means most homes with any smart home presence already have Thread infrastructure deployed. Thread provides a low-power mesh network with lower latency and better range than Zigbee or Z-Wave, and Thread-based Matter devices are measurably more reliable than Wi-Fi-based Matter devices in practice, particularly for battery-powered sensors and locks.

AI-Powered Routines Are the Real 2026 Story

While the Matter specification has been expanding which hardware devices the standard covers, the more consequential development in smart homes in 2026 is AI-powered automation layered on top of these ecosystems. Google Home's AI routines can learn your schedule from observed patterns — recognizing that you leave for work between 8:00 and 8:30 AM on weekdays and automatically pre-warming the car charger, adjusting the thermostat, and running the coffee maker, without manual routine setup. Amazon Alexa+ (the subscription tier that launched in early 2025) adds conversational routine building and context-aware device control via natural language.

Apple Intelligence integration with HomeKit has focused on improved natural language control rather than proactive automation — Siri in iOS 27 handles multi-device commands like "turn everything off except the bedroom fan" with considerably higher accuracy than previous versions, and understands contextual requests that reference rooms, times, and device states in combination. The predictive automation Apple has been slower to ship; the conversational control has genuinely improved.

Energy optimization is the AI routine use case with the clearest measurable payoff. Smart thermostats integrated with local electricity pricing data and solar production monitoring can reduce heating and cooling costs by 15 to 25 percent in homes with time-of-use electricity rates, by learning occupancy patterns and pre-conditioning the home during off-peak pricing windows without requiring manual schedule configuration.

What to Buy, What to Wait On

Building a new smart home setup in 2026 requires more nuance than "just buy Matter devices and everything works."

For lighting and plugs: buy Matter-certified devices with Thread support. Nanoleaf, Eve, and Aqara all produce Thread-based Matter devices that work reliably across ecosystems. Avoid Wi-Fi-only Matter devices for battery-powered sensors — the Wi-Fi radio drains battery too quickly for devices that sleep most of the time.

For cameras and doorbells: if you're primarily a Samsung SmartThings user, Matter 1.5 cameras are worth considering now. For Apple, Google, or Amazon users, the safest choice in mid-2026 is a camera that works natively with your primary ecosystem. Wait for those platforms to ship Matter 1.5 camera support before committing to a Matter-first camera strategy — it's coming, but it isn't here yet for those ecosystems.

For thermostats: ecobee and Google Nest both support Matter and work across ecosystems. This is the category where Matter interoperability is most mature and most valuable — if you switch from Google Home to Apple Home, your thermostat follows without replacement.

Matter is delivering on its promise in the device categories it has fully implemented and supported across all major platforms. The cameras gap — the most important missing category — is closing. By the end of 2026, with Apple, Google, and Amazon expected to ship Matter 1.5 camera support, the smart home fragmentation problem will be meaningfully smaller than it is today. It won't be gone. Standards that require alignment across competing platforms always take longer than any single company's roadmap, and Matter is no exception.