In 2025, the global smart home technology market will be worth USD 47.5 billion, with a CAGR of 21.4% by 2034. This increase is partly due to the fact that the Mate standard enables device interoperability.
The Master Standard starts with the IP Connected Home (CHIP) project in 2019, an alliance of companies working together to build an open source smart home network. The standard was issued with version 1.0 in 2022 and version 1.5 in November 2025. The key principle is a commitment that Mater-certified products can connect to each other and to the Smart Home Hub made by any member of the Mater-Alliance, including Google, Amazon, Apple and Samsung.
Each new version of the standard supports more device types, enabling local connectivity via IPv6 and low-power, low-latency networks without the need for a cloud gateway.- g. The current list of devices that support Mater includes smart lights and sockets, appliances, sensors, curtains, air conditioning and heat pump units, solar panels, Wi-Fi routers, speakers, and video players.
Consumers expect seamless connectivity and immediate operation when adding such devices to their smart home network. To do this, OEMs need to integrate the Matrix architecture into their products from the start.
Composition of Material System
Devices in the Master Smart Home System may play one or more of the following roles: gateways, controllers, edge nodes, terminal nodes, and bridges. The gateway connects the system to the Internet and uses Wi-Fi to interact with controllers, edge nodes, and bridges. The controller sends commands to the edge node and the terminal node, while the edge node and the bridge only route information between the node and the gateway or controller without applying logic.
Another core principle of the Matrix architecture is to achieve high energy efficiency through low power radio frequency (RF) communication. The Bluetooth connection is used for initial commissioning of the device access network, but the network itself consists of other protocols using the same frequency band. The Master network uses the low-power Thread protocol to create a low-latency, self-healing mesh network. The bridge acts as a translator, connecting devices using other protocols, such as Zigbee, to the network (Figure 1).
Sketch map of Master intelligent home network (click to enlarge)
Figure 1: Master Smart Home Network includes gateway (blue circle), controller (light blue circle), Thread Border Router (red circle), bridge (purple circle), edge node (green circle) and terminal node (orange circle). Image source: NXP)
Devices on the Mater network must have wireless communication capabilities (narrowband, Wi-Fi, or both) and a single chip computer (MCU) to run applications, manage communication, and ensure device security. The selection of communication protocols and MCU specifications depend on the network role of the device, energy consumption characteristics and its use to consumers. For example, a smart bulb as a terminal node may be simple in structure and can only receive and execute on/off commands, while a router is much more complex.
Intelligent home one-chip system
The Thread Border Router must balance the energy efficiency and low latency desired by the Mate network with the complexity of managing Thread and Wi-Fi communications, device security, and application execution. NXP Semiconductor's RW61X Wi-Fi 6 Tri-Radio integrates a processing kernel on one chip, a Wi-Fi radio capable of transmitting 20 MHz channels in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, a narrowband radio for commissioning and mesh networking, and a secure enclave for managing device keys and trust configurations, requiring only 3.3 V of external power to operate (Figure 2).
NXP RW61X Wi-Fi 6 Tri-Radio working in two Wi-Fi radio band images
Figure 2: RW61X Wi-Fi 6 Tri-Radio uses a 3.3 V external power supply to operate two Wi-Fi radio bands, one narrowband local radio, one 260 MHz MCU and onboard safety functions. Image source: NXP)
The MCU subsystem of RW61X adopts 260 MHz Arm ® Cortex ®- M33 kernel with TrustZone ™- M Hardware Secure and 1.2 MB Static Random Access Memory (SRAM). The MCU can communicate with the equipment via serial peripheral interface (SPI) and universal asynchronous transceiver (UART), communicate with the sensor via integrated circuit bus (I ² C) interface, and communicate with audio input equipment via integrated circuit built-in audio bus (I ² S) interface. The Precise Time Protocol (PTP) allows network synchronization through the physical layer (PHY) of the chip 100 Mbps Ethernet module.
The RW61X chip supports Wi-Fi 6-based Mat- Wi-Fi to improve network performance and energy efficiency. The RW61X's built-in RF power amplifier (PA) and low noise amplifier (LNA) combine 125 mW of transmit power to ensure stable communication. Class 3 Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) provides encryption and security.
These chips can also support Mater-over - THREAD via low-power Bluetooth or IEEE 802.15.4. They are also Bluetooth 5.2 and 5.4 certified and support a variety of Bluetooth operating modes, including high speed 2 Mbps mode, remote mode for transmitting data at lower rates over longer distances via coded PHY, and broadcast extension mode. In broadcast expansion mode, the equipment can broadcast larger data packets and can be found more easily. This narrowband radio module also uses RF PA and LNA to achieve 32 mW transmission power.
In RW61X chips, security, an important part of the Material Smart Home ecosystem, is managed through the EdgeLock Secure enclave. This tamper-proof hardware authenticates the device with its certificate, encryption key, and identity to establish a root.- g. Security boot, debugging and update protection, hardware encryption, and physical non-cloning functions (PUF) help RW61X chips meet the requirements of Level 3 Assurance of the Internet of Things Platform Security Assessment Standard (Level 3 Assurance and Platform Security Architecture (PSA) Level 3 Certification Framework.