Arduino and Silicon Labs Preview the New Nano Matter Board During Arduino Days 2024
Partnership between Arduino and Silicon Labs brings the Matter protocol into the Arduino ecosystem.
During the Arduino Days 2024 livestream, Arduino CEO Fabio Violante and Chief Product Officer Marcello Majonchi previewed the Arduino Nano Matter, a new board in the Nano family.
Several months ago, Arduino announced a partnership with Silicon Labs and teased the new Nano Board. During today's livestream, both companies provided more details on the Nano Matter's features and the importance of the Matter Protocol and demonstrated a Matter-based sketch.
The Arduino Nano Matter has the same 18 x 45 millimeter form factor as other Arduino Nano boards. The microcontroller is an MGM2405 multi-protocol wireless SoC from Silicon Labs containing an Arm Cortex-M33 and a 2.4 GHz radio. It supports proprietary wireless protocols and standards like Zigbee, Open Thread, Bluetooth Low Energy, and Matter.
As the name implies, Matter support is the key focus of this new board. The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) publishes the open-source Matter protocol specification. It focuses on enabling smart home devices (from different vendors) to seemingly and securely connect with each other with minimal user intervention.
Rob Shane of Silicon Labs described Matter as a gateway technology and the solution to "stop the protocol wars!" For example, if you build an IoT device with the Arduino Nano Matter, your smartphone can provision and configure it to connect to a Google Nest Hub.
Tamas Jòzsi of Silicon Labs demonstrated this scenario during the Arduino Days 2024 announcement. Jòzsi built a sketch in the Arduino IDE and programmed it onto the Arduino Nano Matter. Then, Jòzsi did a one-time provisioning step involving a QR code in the Google Home App. From there, Jòzsi demonstrated that the smartphone app or the Google Nest Hub could control the Nano Matter's onboard LEDs! It is impressively seamless.
Arduino Senior VP Guneet Bedi also stressed that while Matter might sound primarily focused on smart home automation, it will likely eventually expand into industrial applications.
Being a Nano, the edges of the board are castellated. This feature lets you connect header pins or sockets or solder the board directly to a PCB. There is an onboard RGB LED, two push buttons, a chip antenna, and a USB-C connector for power and data.
Today's announcement is only a preview. Arduino did announce a $25 price, but boards are not yet available. If you want to learn more about the board, Arduino has a mailing list you can sign up for on the Arduino Nano Matter product page.