Eve Makes an Impressive Pivot from HomeKit to Matter at CES 2023
A longtime maker of smart home gadgets designed for Apple HomeKit, Eve is going all-in on rival standard Matter in 2023 and bringing older devices along for the ride.
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The Thread-enabled Eve Energy smart plug works with Matter right out of the box and hits stores March 28.
The Eve lineup of smart gadgets has been a steady presence in the smart home and at CES for the past several years, but the brand made some significant refinements to its pitch for 2023. A longtime stalwart of Apple's HomeKit standard, with sleek, unassuming devices designed specifically for integration with iOS and with Siri, Eve is now betting big on the newly launched Matter universal smart home standard to help expand its appeal beyond Apple fans -- and its first Matter-ready gadgets are due in stores within months.
Specifically, you can expect three new Matter-compatible Eve gadgets to hit the market by the end of March: the Eve Door and Window entry sensor; the Eve Energy smart plug; and the Eve Motion, for detecting movement throughout the home. Prices start at $40 for the Eve Energy, and $50 for the Eve Door and Window and the Eve Motion. All three will offer full support for Matter over the Thread protocol at launch.
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Eve's new $200 smart blind retrofit kit wants to turn normal shades into smart shades you can automate or control from your phone, and it'll support Matter once the standard starts recognizing smart blinds in mid-2023.
Additionally, Eve is introducing a new $200 retrofit kit for basic roller blinds called Eve MotionBlinds. Coming to Eve's online store with the other devices on March 28, the Thread-enabled smart roller promises easy installation without need for wiring or special tools, as well as automation controls via the Eve or Apple Home apps. And, once Matter begins incorporating smart blinds as part of its mid-2023 release, you can expect those blinds to sync up with that standard as well, bringing Google, Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings and other Matter partners into play.
"A fast-mover on Matter, Eve was among the first to offer free over-the-air Matter updates for existing devices," says Eve Systems CEO Jerome Gackel. "Now, Eve will be one of the first to offer Matter right out of the box, delivering on the new standard's promise to finally bring simplicity, reliability, interoperability and security to your smart home."
New devices aside, it's notable that Eve has been able to bring a considerable number of its older-gen devices into the Matter fold by way of software updates. Other brands with new Matter gadgets at CES, including GE Lighting and Govee, haven't been able to update their older devices to support Matter due to hardware limitations. Eve, meanwhile, made a significant pivot from Bluetooth to Thread back in 2019, when the Matter standard first started coming together, and the company says that it took whatever measures it could to ensure that those Thread devices would be able to work with Matter once the standard was released.
"Eve currently offers the largest portfolio of Thread-enabled smart home products, and all of them are either already eligible for over-the-air upgrades to Matter, or will be when new Matter specs are released," a company spokesperson said.
The only products in Eve's current lineup that don't use Thread and which aren't immediately eligible for a Matter upgrade are the Eve Light Strip and the Eve Flare. The spokesperson said that Matter upgrade plans are still in the works for those, though no timetable is set just yet.
For more, catch up on CNET's live CES coverage here and check out our CES 2023 smart home roundup here.