Bosch presents its first Matter-compatible appliance in the United States.
This refrigerator is important.
The appliance manufacturer Bosch is showcasing its first Matter-compatible device at the CES exhibition this week. It is the 100 Series French Door Bottom Mount refrigerator, launched in November and expected to be available for purchase in the United States this spring. The price of this refrigerator is $2,500 and it features an integrated chip that enables Matter compatibility. Eelco Lammertink from BSH, which owns the Bosch, Siemens, Thermador, and Gaggenau brands, announced that a firmware update for this smart home standard will be released this summer.
The 100 Series is a model related to the Matter-enabled Siemens XXL refrigerator that was presented at IFA in Berlin last November. This similarly styled model will be launched in the European market on a similar timeline. Lammertink also reported that BSH plans to implement Matter across all its appliances under the Bosch, Siemens, and Thermador brands, starting with refrigerators this year, and adding another category of appliances next year, with three more to follow in 2026.
The Bosch refrigerator will be compatible with Samsung SmartThings and Amazon Alexa this year. During CES, demonstrations of these integrations were held with a SmartThings map view on the background screen and an Echo Show placed on the table. The 100 Series will support Matter 1.3, allowing users to remotely control the temperature and receive notifications from the refrigerator on their preferred smart home platform. For example, a smart speaker will announce when the door has been left open.
Although many smart refrigerators already offer these features, the advantage of Matter lies in establishing a local connection between the appliance and the ecosystem, which enhances the speed and security of communication. Currently, only Samsung SmartThings and Home Assistant support appliances in Matter, but Amazon is expected to include them this year. There is no news yet regarding support from Google Home or Apple Home.
Lammertink mentioned that they plan to add energy reporting and energy management capabilities to the refrigerator, integrating it into a whole-home energy management system enabled by Matter. However, he regretted that they will not be updating existing appliances for Matter compatibility, citing significant challenges and the risk of disabling functioning devices like ovens or dishwashers.
Matter, on the other hand, is a smart home interoperability standard designed to provide a common language that enables connected devices to communicate locally within the home, without relying on cloud connectivity. This standard is secure, private, easy to set up, and compatible with a wide variety of devices. Developed by companies such as Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung, Matter is an open-source IP connectivity software layer that works over Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and the low-power mesh network protocol Thread, being compatible with most major types of devices in homes, such as lighting, thermostats, locks, robot vacuums, appliances, and more.
A smart device with the Matter logo can be set up and used with any compatible ecosystem through a Matter controller and can be controlled by more than one, thanks to a feature called multi-admin. Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, and Apple Home are some of the smart home platforms that support Matter, along with hundreds of device manufacturers.
