Project Connected Home Over IP, often called CHIP, was the original name for a royalty-free proprietary connections

standard that was ultimately renamed Matter, the 1.0 version of which was finally published

in October of 2022 after three years of pre-1.0 development. In mid-November of 2022, a device

company called Maros released a Wi-Fi-connected smart plug

that made inbuilt use of the matter standard.

One of the first devices brought to market with matter support included.

The device even has a little matter logo on it to make sure you understand that this is an

especially valuable smart plug.

That additional implied value stems from what matter allows supporting devices to do.

A conventional smart plug will generally allow you to connect to one of the many proprietary

connectivity networks offered by an array of tech companies globally.

So you might have a smart plug that works with Samsung's Smart Things device network,

but it might also instead connect to Apple's Home app or Amazon's Smart Home device mesh.

The theory behind each of these connectivity options is essentially the same.

If you have a device that works with Samsung's Smart Things

network, it will connect seamlessly to all other devices using your Wi-Fi signal that are on

the same Smart Things network. This makes lashing together a bunch of disparate hardware components

like speakers and security cameras and smartphones and computers a million times easier.

So that's beneficial for customers.

This is also beneficial for the product maker though, as it tends to incentivize the purchase

of devices that work on that same network.

If you have a handful of Samsung Smart Things devices on a network at home, you will probably be less likely to buy a smart plug that only works with Apple's Home app or Amazon's Smart Home device network. You could buy products that don't interact with all of your other products, but why? This connectivity becomes a selling point, and it also creates what's called consumer lock-in,

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