More than one-third of announcements out of CES 2023 were about smart home products. An interoperability protocol for IoT devices, Matter optimizes the user experience by simplifying available functionality and how users interact with different smart home products made by different manufacturers.
For instance, Matter will support specific features for smart lighting, such as scheduling, brightness, and color, but not light shows or any sophisticated triggers. This refining of functionality of similar smart products across different brands helps simplify interactions over Matter, but it also creates conditions that can lead to all smart homes having the same functionality. Device differentiation must lie within the experience.
As Matter gets widely adopted, it will bring some uncertainty about what it means for companies trying to maintain a digital relationship with their customers. Digital relationships with customers generate invaluable information for the business. Data on a customer’s behavioral interaction with your products, level of digital experience engagement, and purchasing habits are immensely important to smart home device makers to drive more sales and better products through data-driven business decisions. But maintaining a strong digital relationship with consumers is at risk with the impending adoption of Matter.
If you’re a creator of smart home experiences, some questions to ask are:
- What value-add innovations should you be focusing on that offer additional benefits and convince users to keep at least some digital relationship with you?
- What sort of strategic partnerships should be made for offering additional features and functionality across different branded products?
Now is a good time to seriously consider your digital product strategy in a post-Matter world. In other words, you need to go above and beyond Matter.
The secret: focus on the consumer experience
Consumers will inevitably begin a process of culling the apps they use. Rather than maintain an app for every branded device, they'll keep only those they value the most. You’ll need to identify ways to entice users to interact with your digital app experience, but in a way that doesn’t cripple the primary use cases of your device if they chose to simply interact with them through a Matter-supported ecosystem.
Strategic partnerships with other device makers may be a way to offer value-add experiences that your company may not be able to offer on its own (and vice versa). Matter 1.0 only supports a handful of device types (e.g. smart locks, lights, plugs, etc.) That means makers of, say, smart vacuums will find their devices are outside of the protocol. But these manufacturers can partner with the maker of, say, smart lights to offer increased interoperability across the product lines that Matter simply won’t support. This could be packaged up in a premium digital experience offering to entice users to engage with your company’s branded experience.
The ideology behind Matter is something that has been long needed within the industry, but it is utilitarian in nature. Matter does little to dictate how the experience should look and feel. Providing your users with moments of delight through rich animations, extended personalization, and smart suggestions based on user behavior will keep your users loyal to the value that your brand brings to them.
Planning Your IoT Strategy
Here are four things you should think about to ensure your product is differentiated and offers a compelling user experience.
Step 1: Define your product vision
Every IoT product needs a vision for how it will enhance the experiences of the end user. Define how your product will play a better role in enhancing the lives of your users compared to your competition.
Step 2: Identity value-added features that support that vision
Going beyond Matter, identify the specific value-add features and functionality that will create the biggest impact and ultimately deliver meaningful experiences for your users. Commodification of IoT products will be a challenge, especially now that Matter provides a roadmap for operability. If step one is to consider how to enhance the user’s experience, step two offers the specifics for getting you there.
Step 3: Identify required data sources
Your brand may need to tap into external data sources to contextualize the experiences your products seek to deliver. Consider how those data integrations will affect the user experience, and how to simplify any complexity.
Step 4: Identify the elements that will deliver a cohesive experience
What elements along the omnichannel of the user’s journey will your brand need to take into consideration so that your products deliver a cohesive and positive experience?
Here’s my final piece of advice: start now. The commoditization of device functionality is coming and it’s imperative to find ways to differentiate your experience from your competitors. Those brands that move fast will own the market, and it will be difficult for slow starters to catch up.
Andy Watson is Director of Product Management, IoT Lead at digital consultancy Rightpoint.