ST is thrilled to announce that X-CUBE-MATTER now supports Matter 1.3. A few months ago, we released a public version of the software package to ensure more developers could access it. With today’s release, we are now one of the first device makers to support the latest version of the standard. Among its many new features, Matter 1.3 brings energy reporting capabilities. As the name implies, devices can more easily declare how much electricity they consume, thus helping users monitor their energy consumption in real time. Another major feature is intermittency connected devices or ICDs.
In a nutshell, ICD enables Matter devices to turn themselves on at specific intervals to talk to the network, and the host doesn’t create issues when the client device is unreachable. While Matter 1.2 did support ICD with short idle time, Matter 1.3 support long idle time, making the technology significantly more interesting for small battery-powered devices. In fact, to show how developers can implement ICD, we are releasing a new “Generic-Switch-App” that can run a switch, like those used by smart lights. The switch can detect three states: pressed down, pressed down, and released shortly, and pressed down and released after five seconds.
Additionally, we worked with the CSA to better guarantee the interoperability of our solutions, ensuring developers don’t have to worry about this issue if they reuse our code. Traditionally, it’s the software engineers of the commercial products that undergo this process, not the processor’s manufacturer. However, by working with the CSA, we ensure an easier and quicker development process on ST radios. Similarly, we are providing pre-certified samples and tools to build the .OTA files that are needed for over-the-air updates using Matter, which facilitates the implementation of the certification process required by such a feature.
