Why Apple, Amazon and Google Are Uniting on Smart-Home Tech

If you think about smart-home gadgets at all, you probably think about energy-saving thermostats or lights you control with an app. Most people don’t worry about how they work, let alone how they might work together.

Some of tech’s biggest players—Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.—have established smart-home platforms, so your iPhone can turn off the lights or Alexa can change the thermostat without too much extra setup. But that still means shoppers must check if new products work with the tech they already have at home.

Compatibility issues and setup complexity have made people slow to go all-in with smart-home technology. A new standard, called Matter, aims to change that.

When it rolls out this year, Matter will act as a common language spoken by most new—and many older—smart-home products. You could buy any gadget you wanted and connect it to whichever app you prefer. You’ll be able to control it with the voice assistant of your choice, or even use multiple assistants and apps inside your home.

Even though Matter would work behind the scenes, it could mean more affordable devices that are easier to set up and even play nicely together.

What’s perhaps most surprising: All the biggest names in smart-home tech are on board, so going forward, you won’t be trapped in one walled garden. If you get tired of Alexa and want to switch to Apple’s HomePod Mini, you could do it without having to also buy new automated blinds. (It’s a little like the film industry going all-in on VHS back in the day.)

“We all really recognized that unless we solved some foundational problems that were hitting all of us across the industry, this industry just wasn’t going to grow,” said Michele Turner, senior director of Google smart-home ecosystem.

Along with the tech giants, over 220 other companies support Matter. Between now and the end of the decade, vendors will ship more than 5.5 billion Matter-compliant smart-home devices, according to ABI Research.

Matter is designed to be more secure and private than other smart-home systems, in part because it can perform some basic functions without sending messages to the cloud. And you probably won’t have to throw out all your old smart devices.

That’s not to say the companies supporting Matter won’t try to lock you in somehow. Matter defines basic functionality, but advanced features will still be linked to companies—like how AirPods work better with Apple devices.

‘So Dead Simple’

Initially, Matter will run in door locks; sensors for motion, air quality and more; thermostats; lighting; garage-door openers; blinds and shades; smart plugs; and smart TVs. More complex smart-home products, such as security cameras, robot vacuums and appliances, won’t be supported at launch.

When a developer wants to add a feature to its smart-home product, it has to expend resources to update the software for every platform. With Matter, most changes would only need to be made once, so developers could lower their prices.

Once you get your Matter-compatible product home, setup will be easy—you would just scan a QR code to add it to your network. “The goal is for the vast majority of devices out there—lights, plugs, switches, sensors—to make that initial setup so dead simple that it just takes a couple of seconds,” said Ms. Turner.

You can give your housemates smart-home access, letting them turn on the lights with Alexa while you use Siri. And if you have a mishmash of gear in your home, you might even get it all to work together. Right now, most people buy smart-home devices to address a “singular need,” said Adam Wright, an analyst with technology research firm International Data Corp., but that could change as more are compatible with Matter.

Quitting the Cloud

Google and Amazon’s home devices regularly communicate with the cloud, while Apple’s HomeKit is designed to work without as much internet dependence. Smart-home commands stay inside your home, which can make responses faster and more private. Matter takes a similar approach to HomeKit. If there’s an internet outage, your Matter-enabled products could still work, much like how your Wi-Fi printer still operates when your broadband is down.

“All smart-home accessories will have the same level of security, privacy and ease of use that Apple customers enjoy today with HomeKit accessories,” Apple spokeswoman Jacqueline Roy said.

In the past, Eve Systems GmbH didn’t link its smart plugs and sensors with Google and Amazon because they depend on the cloud, said Tim Both, Eve’s senior brand and product manager. Eve didn’t want to be responsible for user data. With Matter, the system’s data can stay inside your home, even if you use Google or Amazon’s platforms.

Amazon and others will still use the cloud for some things. Older Alexa-enabled smart speakers can’t process commands without it, said Chris DeCenzo, a principal engineer at Amazon working on smart home and Alexa devices, adding that the cloud is “a critical component of infrastructure for many, many smart-home devices and services today.”

All New Stuff?

If you already bought into the smart-home life, you won’t have to start over. Not completely, anyway.

All Philips Hue lights will work with Matter when the Hue bridges that control them get updated software, said George Yianni, co-founder of the Philips Hue lighting business, who now runs its R&D for parent company Signify NV. “Even ones we sold 10 years ago will become Matter-compatible.”

Most newer products from the giants will work with the new standard. Google’s Nest Wifi and its recent Hub displays will become connection points for Matter, while all Nest displays and speakers will get updates to control Matter devices. The newest Nest Thermostat will be compatible as well.

Nearly all Amazon Echo devices will let you set up and control Matter, too. Apple’s HomePod Mini and second-generation Apple TV 4K will be able to act as Matter hubs, as will Samsung’s SmartThings Hub v3.

Products that can’t be updated will continue to work as before, just without the increased compatibility. Assa Abloy Group will upgrade some of its Yale locks, but it can’t update its August line. Matter wasn’t designed “in a way that we can reliably run it on a Wi-Fi lock that runs on batteries,” said Jason Williams, president of the company’s August and Yale smart-lock businesses. The batteries would drain quickly, creating a poor user experience.

Some Yale locks can be upgradable with a hardware module—so you don’t have to buy a new lock but you still might have to spend a bit extra. The company aims to make all future consumer locks work with Matter, Mr. Williams said.

Despite any initial shortcomings, Matter may be the key to smarter homes, even the homes of people without Ph.D.s in electrical engineering.

“We know we’re competing with a light switch,” said Samantha Fein, vice president of business development and marketing at Samsung’s SmartThings. “So if it’s not as easy as that, we’re not going to get anywhere.”

They call themselves TikTok refugees—and the app they are fleeing to is a lot more Chinese than the video-sharing app whose U.S. fate now hangs in the balance.

After Supreme Court justices Friday seemed inclined to let stand a law that would shut down TikTok in the U.S., the Chinese social-media platform Xiaohongshu , translated in English as Little Red Book, has received a flood of American TikTok users. They are looking for a sanctuary or a way to protest the potentially imminent TikTok ban—never mind that they don’t speak Chinese.

Charlotte Silverstein, a 32-year-old publicist in Los Angeles, downloaded Xiaohongshu on Sunday night after seeing videos on TikTok about migrating to the app, which Americans dubbed “RedNote.” She described the move as a “last act of defiance” in her frustration about the potential TikTok ban.

“Everyone has been super welcoming and sweet,” said Silverstein, who has made three posts so far. “I love the sense of community that I’m seeing already.”

By Monday, TikTok refugees had pushed Xiaohongshu to the top of the free-app chart on Apple ’s App Store.

“I’m really nervous to be on this app, but I also find it to be really exciting and thrilling that we’re all doing this,” one new Xiaohongshu user said in a video clip on Sunday. “I’m sad that TikTok might actually go, but if this is where we’re gonna be hanging out, welcome to my page!” Within a day, the video had more than 3,000 comments and 6,000 likes. And the user had amassed 24,000 followers.

Neither Xiaohongshu nor TikTok responded to requests for comment.

The flow of refugees, while serving as a symbolic dissent against TikTok’s possible shutdown, doesn’t mean Xiaohongshu can easily serve as a replacement for Americans. TikTok says it has 170 million users in the U.S., and it has drawn many creators who take advantage of the app’s features to advertise and sell their products.

Most of the content on Xiaohongshu is in Chinese and the app doesn’t have a simple way to auto-translate the posts into English.

At a time of a strained U.S.-China relationship, some new Chinese-American friendships are budding on an app that until now has had few international users.

“I like that two countries are coming together,” said Sarah Grathwohl, a 32-year-old marketing manager in Seattle, who made a Xiaohongshu account on Sunday night. “We’re bonding over this experience.”

Granthwohl doesn’t speak Chinese, so she has been using Google Translate for help. She said she isn’t concerned about data privacy and would rather try a new Chinese app than shift her screentime to Instagram Reels.

Another opportunity for bonding was a photo of English practice questions from a Chinese textbook, with the caption, “American please.” American Xiaohongshu users helped answer the questions in the comments, receiving a “thank u Honey,” from the person who posted the questions.

By Monday evening, there have been more than 72,000 posts with the hashtag #tiktokrefugee on Xiaohongshu, racking up some 34 million views.

In an English-language post titled “Welcome TikTok refugees,” posted by a Shanghai-based Xiaohongshu user, an American user responded in Chinese with a cat photo and the words, “Thank you for your warm welcome. Everyone is so cute. My cat says thanks, too.” The user added, “I hope this is the correct translation.”

Some Chinese users are also using the livestreaming function to invite TikTok migrants to chat. One chat room hosted by a Chinese English tutor had more than 179,900 visits with several Americans exchanging cultural views with Chinese users.

ByteDance-owned TikTok isn’t available in China but has a Chinese sister app, Douyin. American users can’t download Douyin, though; unlike Xiaohongshu, it is only accessible from Chinese app stores.

On Xiaohongshu, Chinese users have been sharing tutorials and tips in English for American users on how to use the app. Meanwhile, on TikTok, video clips have also multiplied over the past two days teaching users the correct pronunciation of Xiaohongshu—shau-hong-SHOO—and its culture.

Xiaohongshu may be new to most Americans, but in China, it is one of the most-used social-media apps. Backed by investors like Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group , Xiaohongshu is perhaps best described as a Chinese mix of Instagram and Reddit and its users increasingly treat it as a search engine for practical information.

Despite its Little Red Book name, Xiaohongshu has little in common with the compilation of Mao Zedong ’s political writings and speeches. In fact, the app aspires to be a guidebook about anything but politics.

Conceived as a shopping guide for affluent urbanites in 2013, Xiaohongshu has morphed into a one-stop shop for lifestyle and shopping recommendations. Every day, its more than 300 million users, who skew toward educated young women, create, share and search for posts about anything from makeup tutorials to career-development lessons, game strategies or camping skills.

Over the years, Xiaohongshu users have developed a punchy writing style, with posts accompanied by images and videos for an Instagram feel.

Chinese social-media platforms are required to watch political content closely. Xiaohongshu’s focus on lifestyle content, eschewing anything that might seem political, makes it less of a regulatory target than a site like Weibo , which in 2021 was fined at least $2.2 million by China’s cyberspace watchdog for disseminating “illegal information.”

“I don’t expect to read news or discussion of serious issues on Xiaohongshu,” said Lin Ying, a 26-year-old game designer in Beijing.

The American frenzy over a Chinese app is the reverse of a migration in recent years by Chinese social-media users seeking refuge from censorship on Western platforms , such as X, formerly known as Twitter, or, more recently, BlueSky.

Just like TikTok users who turn to the app for fun, Xiaohongshu users also seek entertainment through livestreams and short video clips as well as photos and text-posts on the platform.

Xiaohongshu had roughly 1.3 million U.S. mobile users in December, according to market-intelligence firm Sensor Tower, which estimates that U.S. downloads of the app in the week ending Sunday almost tripled compared with the week before.

Sensor Tower data indicates that Xiaohongshu became the top-ranked social-networking and overall free app on Apple’s App Store and the 8th top-ranked social app on the Google Play Store on Monday, “a feat it has never achieved before,” said Abe Yousef, senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower.

Run by Shanghai-based Xingin Information Technology, Xiaohongshu makes money primarily from advertising, according to a Xiaohongshu spokeswoman. The company was valued at $17 billion after its latest round of private-equity investment in the summer, according to research firm PitchBook Data.

Not everyone is singing kumbaya. Some Chinese Xiaohongshu users are worried about the language barrier. And some American TikTok users are concerned about data safety on the Chinese app.

But many are hoping to build bridges between the two countries.

“Y’all might think Americans are hateful because of how our politicians are, but I promise you not all of us are like that,” one American woman said on a Sunday video she posted on Xiaohongshu with Chinese subtitles.

She went on to show how to make cheese quesadillas using a waffle maker.

The video collected more than 11,000 likes and 3,000 comments within 24 hours. “It’s so kind of you to use Chinese subtitles,” read one popular comment posted by a user from Sichuan province.

Another Guangdong-based user commented with a bilingual “friendly reminder”: “On Chinese social-media platforms please do not mention sensitive topics such as politics, religion and drugs!!!”

Why Apple, Amazon and Google Are Uniting on Smart-Home Tech

The new standard, arriving this year, provides a common language so all your devices can communicate with each other.

‘So Dead Simple’

Quitting the Cloud

All New Stuff?

Chinese users of Xiaohongshu, or Little Red Book, welcome Americans fleeing a feared TikTok ban