The Broadband Forum has introduced an interface to simplify the management of Matter-powered smart homes.

The TR-517 Matter Service API should help service providers and application developers scale services to improve smart home experiences for users. It also means such services can be developed and deployed faster.

With this, the service provider gains a complete view of all Matter-powered devices on a smart home network regardless of the manufacturer. Instead of building services to manage each individual Matter ecosystem, broadband service providers and application developers now only need to develop and launch them once.

“Industry efforts around Matter have successfully made smart home devices work together, but access to those devices is still frequently controlled through proprietary ecosystems,” said Jason Walls, from the Broadband Forum and director of technical marketing at QA Café (www.qacafe.com). “This means that customer experience services, such as diagnostics, automation services, energy management and customer support tools can be deployed at scale to fix Matter-related smart home issues before customers even notice them.”

Matter is a universal connectivity standard that allows devices from different manufacturers such as Apple, Google, Amazon and Samsung to communicate with each other on a network. As the number of devices that use the Matter standard increases, the need for a common service layer is growing. The latest Matter releases have added support for cameras, energy management devices, appliances, sensors, shading systems and other categories that increasingly form the foundation of connected home experiences.

“Many Matter-enabled smart home deployments remain tied to proprietary cloud platforms, mobile applications and vendor-specific integrations,” said Xavier Roubaud, director at Orange (www.orange.com). “As a result, service providers and third-party developers often face a fragmented landscape when attempting to build services that work across devices from different manufacturers. Thanks to the Matter Service API, gateways and smart home hubs can now become stable platforms for innovation, making it easier for service providers to launch new monetisable services.”

The Matter Service Data Model for USP Enabled Devices (TR-517) combines Broadband Forum’s User Services Platform (USP/TR-369) with the Matter protocol, establishing a consistent API and unified platform to manage customer experience in smart homes through broadband gateways, routers and smart home hubs. Because the model is automatically aligned with Matter’s evolving device definitions, service providers gain a future-ready framework that can adapt as device types enter the ecosystem.

For more information on TR-517, visit www.broadband-forum.org/technical-library/?number=TR-517.

The Broadband Forum (www.broadband-forum.org) is a global standards development organisation helping operators, application providers and vendors deliver better services-led broadband.