The Austrian manufacturer Nuki has published a YouTube video showing a smartlock for the new Matter standard. It is a first prototype because the final product is not expected to be on the market until the second half of 2023 at the earliest. As the company’s founders Jürgen and Martin Pansy explained in a press conference, the development will still take time, which is related to the technical requirements of the Matter standard, among other things. Some questions have yet to be clarified – for example, energy efficiency, which was not a top priority during the development of the Matter specifications 1.0, the company bosses reported.
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A smart lock that is operated from two Matter ecosystems – the Nuki demo demonstrates this as well.
Also, the standard does not consider all functions of a door lock, which would be important for providers in Europe, according to Nuki. As already suspected, it only knows the “open” and “closed” states. This is sufficient for American doors. However, for European locks with an additional latch, it would be desirable to be able to operate this latch separately. HomeKit and other systems from the US also lack this function, which is why Nuki has implemented it in its own app so far.
The company also does not give its customers much hope for a software update of existing products. When Nuki launches a Matter-enabled smart lock next year, it will most likely be a new product. However, the current Smartlock 2.0, 3.0 and 3.0 Pro models are expected to remain functional and work with Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit and Google Home via their existing integrations. The manufacturer does not yet want to reveal whether the Matter version will work with the radio protocol Thread or Wi-Fi.
