If you’re planning to replace your wireless router with a new one and you have a smart home, there’s a new certification you’re going to want …

When your home Wi-Fi router is more than a few years old, one of the best moves you can make when it comes to improving your connection and improving the reliability of your smart home products is to upgrade to a more modern model.

For smart homes, you’ll want to check your planned purchase comes with a brand new certification: Wi-Fi for Matter. That’s because where you would once have looked for HomeKit compatibility for new devices, you’re now more likely to look for Matter compatibility – and the Wi-Fi for Matter standard offers two key benefits.

First, it will offer the most reliable connectivity with Matter-certified devices. Second, it will ensure that you’re able to take advantage of the power-saving features of Matter-enabled products. With a compatible router, battery-powered devices are able to go into an extended sleep mode to save on power, with the router able to wake them when required.

The Wi-Fi for Matter certification also incorporates recently-introduced existing standards, including Wi-Fi 6, WPA3 security, IPv4 Proxy Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), and IPv6 Proxy Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP). That means there’s just one label to look for when choosing your new router.

“Wi-Fi and Matter are two cornerstone technologies driving the next wave of IoT innovation,” said Kevin Robinson, president and CEO of Wi-Fi Alliance. “With Wi-Fi for Matter, we are helping our members accelerate deployment of products that deliver the scalability, simplicity, and interoperability that consumers expect in their connected homes.”

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Photo by Jakub Żerdzicki on Unsplash