A smart home is one of the most gruelling tests of interoperability. A single flat brings together devices from several manufacturers, different operating systems, apps, the cloud, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Thread, user accounts and automations. The consumer, who has no interest in architecture, becomes the integrator of this entire environment. They simply expect the light to come on when they press a button.
This simplicity comes at a high technological cost. And that is precisely why the smart home market clearly illustrates the problems faced by large organisations today: fragmented systems, dependence on partners, inconsistent data standards, updates that disrupt existing processes, and responsibility spread across several suppliers.
The biggest attempt to bring order to this market is Matter, a standard being developed by the Connectivity Standards Alliance, whose members include Apple, Amazon, Google, Samsung and hundreds of other companies. The nature of the latest version clearly illustrates where the problem lies today. Matter 1.6, published in June 2026, does not introduce any new device categories. It focuses on configuration, sharing devices across ecosystems and a more precise exchange of information regarding their status. The Joint Fabric featureallows several authorised controllers to jointly manage a single Matter network, rather than building separate integration layers for each ecosystem.
This is more important than yet another compatible light bulb. The standard is evolving from the question ‘Can devices connect?’ to ‘Can different systems manage them together?’. This is exactly the same problem that arises in companies after years of implementing successive clouds, SaaS platforms, ERP and CRM systems, and in-house applications.
The scale is no longer a niche phenomenon. In June 2026, Samsung reported that SmartThings had 460 million registered users worldwide. In November 2025, the Thread Group surpassed 1,000 certified products and components utilising Thread, a networking technology widely used by Matter. Interoperability has therefore become a key part of product economics. Manufacturers no longer compete solely on the basis of hardware specifications. They compete on access to ecosystems, the quality of integration and the ability to maintain the product through successive updates.
Sonos has clearly demonstrated the cost of errors at this level . In May 2024, the company launched a thoroughly redesigned app. Configuration issues, missing features and software instability affected devices that customers already had in their homes. In documents filed with the US SEC, Sonos admitted that the problems had led to a decline in sales of existing products and reputational damage. The company also postponed the launches of two products and estimated the short-term costs of rectifying the situation at up to $30 million. A few months later, Patrick Spence stepped down as CEO.
This was not an app error in the conventional sense. The layer that integrated hardware, software, customer accounts and network services into a single product had failed. The smart home market brutally exposes precisely such interdependencies: the value of a physical device can plummet following a single faulty code update.
Regulation adds to the problem. From 11 September 2026, manufacturers covered by the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act will be required to report actively exploited vulnerabilities and serious security incidents. Early warnings must be submitted to the system within 24 hours, with a full report to follow within 72 hours. A device’s software, its updates and the process for responding to vulnerabilities are therefore becoming not only a matter of product quality, but also a regulatory obligation.
The smart home reflects, on a small scale, the architecture of the modern enterprise. The boundaries between systems are becoming increasingly blurred; a product is increasingly a service maintained over many years; and a failure in a single integration can ripple through the entire value chain.
Matter solves part of the technical problem. It does not solve the organisational problem. It is possible to standardise the communication protocol. It is much more difficult to standardise responsibility for what happens after the next update.
