Matter has been talked about for a while and has now formerly arrived as version 1.0 with extravagant promises to unify separate islands of automation within the smart home to enable new joined up services and applications. As with any protocol or platform, Matter’s success will depend on the strength of its backing and willingness to adopt it by major providers of smart home IoT systems. Prospects look good on both counts, not least because there are the same big hitters in both camps driving the standard and seeking to profit from the IoT integration capabilities. For this reason, Matter can be expected to become a major unifying force in IoT despite its troubled gestation. Indeed, the delay largely reflects…