Even though Matter was supposed to level the playing field for consumers when it came to smart home interoperability, the individual companies behind your favourite products are still competing.
Take Samsung, for example. Today the company has announced its SmartThings platform is the first of the leading providers to offer support for Matter 1.5. The Matter 1.5 update is important because it officially offers support for smart cameras and video doorbells.
Matter has been great thus far when it comes to uniting things like locks, lights and switches from different manufacturers, whether you choose Apple Home, Google Home or, indeed, SmartThings to handle their operation. However, cameras have long been considered the missing piece of the puzzle.
In a media release today, Samsung says: “Cameras are a core part of any smart and secure home whether monitoring your home while away, checking on pets, or keeping an eye on deliveries. By supporting Matter cameras first, SmartThings gives consumers more choice, simpler setup, and smoother integration across brands.”
Adding support for cameras has been the most requested feature for the alliance of major smart home tech suppliers. Matter 1.5 also adds support for blinds, drapes, garage doors and, interestingly soil sensors.
When Matter – which is a collaboration between all of the major players – announced the support it explained cameras could “support live video and audio streaming using established WebRTC technology, permitting two-way talk and both local and remote access through standard STUN and TURN protocols.”
Furthermore, Matter 1.5 will offer support for “multi-stream configurations, pan-tilt-zoom controls, detection and privacy zones, and flexible storage options, including continuous or event-based recording to local or cloud destinations.”
Matter 1.5 is arriving as an over-the-air update for compatible devices. Samsung will be showing off how it benefits the SmartThings ecosystem as CES 2026 next month.
