Silicon Labs, a provider of secure, intelligent wireless technology for a more connected world has announced the opening of the new Silicon Labs Connectivity Lab in their Boston facility. The Connectivity Lab simulates a modern Smart Home, with a range of IoT devices, applications, ecosystems, and networks. It offers developers an ideal environment to test their Matter prototypes operating within real-world scenarios across a variety of protocols and device brands.
“At the end of the day, every developer is focused on the consumer’s experience at home,” says Colin Cureton, senior director of IoT home & life ecosystems at Silicon Labs. “The Connectivity Lab offers a home environment to explore interoperability and test and refine products to give developers confidence as they bring innovative products to market.”
Connectivity Lab offers real-world Matter testing
To date, the industry has focused on testing Matter devices in single-use environments and on how the Matter application layer functions in a connectivity stack. Silicon Labs’ Connectivity Lab advances Matter device testing to offer a ‘home within a lab’ setting in which developers can explore the many variables and possible device and network configurations consumers have in their homes. Silicon Labs created a home-like setting (e.g., kitchen, living room) with a variety of smart home devices and applications, from lighting to locks and thermostats, as well as entertainment systems. By testing Matter devices as they will be used in homes, developers can find, troubleshoot, and resolve issues consumers might face. The insight gained from the Connectivity Lab will help Silicon Labs, developers, and the industry deliver great smart home experiences for consumers.
“The Connectivity Lab ties together our internal ecosystem device testing with the consumer’s experience at home,” says Sarah Scannell, senior engineering director of 15.4 & Matter Software at Silicon Labs. “This is incredibly valuable to our engineering teams and our customers to see first-hand the interoperability and performance impact our pre-release software has on the end-user experience.”
The Connectivity Lab is designed to test connectivity and interoperability for Matter devices within the most common Matter ecosystems, like Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings. These ecosystems are the primary ways consumers interact with smart home devices, so the Lab allows developers and designers to gain knowledge about their products and confidence in their products’ real-world performance.
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