What are Matter and Thread and why do they matter for smart homes?

Matter is a new standard that lets smart home devices from different brands all work together. Thread is the wireless network they use to talk to each other without needing WiFi.

For years, smart home devices from different brands cannot work together. Philips lights cannot talk to Amazon speakers, for example. Matter is a new standard that all the big companies agreed to support, so now a light can be a light and your app doesn't matter anymore. Thread is a local wireless network (like WiFi) that these devices can use to communicate with each other without needing to go through your router. Devices with both Matter and Thread work faster and more reliably because they're talking directly to each other on a dedicated network instead of competing with your regular WiFi traffic.