Silicon Labs and Nuki Announce Matter-Over-Thread Smart Locks

By Ken Briodagh

Senior Technology Editor

Embedded Computing Design

March 04, 2024

News

Silicon Labs and Nuki Announce Matter-Over-Thread Smart Locks

In a recent release, Silicon Labs announced it will be creating the underlying Matter technology for a new series of native Matter-over-Thread smart locks. The company says these are the first commercially available examples of this technology in Smart Locks.

Austrian smart lock manufacturer Nuki reportedly will use Silicon Labs solutions in the fourth-generation Nuki Smart Lock, a lock that adds smart capabilities to European-style door knobs. Silicon Valley-based smart lock manufacturer U-tec uses Silicon Labs solutions in its newly announced Ultraloq Bolt Fingerprint Matter, the first-ever biometric smart deadbolt lock with Matter-over-Thread, according to the release.

"The companies leading IoT industry trends and setting the curve with Matter capabilities are coming to Silicon Labs for our Matter expertise," said Jacob Alamat, SVP, Home and Life Business Unit, Silicon Labs. "As the largest code contributor to Matter of any semiconductor company, Silicon Labs has extensive expertise in the field, enabling our array of industry-leading Matter SoCs and modules and empowering strong, cutting-edge partnerships."

Nuki's new Smart Lock is a retrofit smart lock for European-style doors, and because of the Matter integration, users do not need a separate bridge or module to run the lock in multiple ecosystems.

"As pioneers in the smart home sector, it was not only important for Nuki to be part of the Matter movement from the very beginning – but also it would have been unthinkable not to be. It is all the more rewarding that we could live up to this role with the launch of our fourth-generation smart locks. But this would not have been possible without a strong partner," explains Martin Pansy, Co-Founder and CEO, Nuki. 

Later this year, the Austrian company said it plans to bring its retrofit locks to the US.

The Silicon Labs Matter-certified MG24 SoC and EFP01 power management IC provide Nuki with the ability to offer energy-efficient mesh IoT wireless connectivity using Matter, OpenThread, and Zigbee protocols, the companies said in the release.

Silicon Labs was bullish at CES about the power and importance of Matter for Smart Home solutions, so it seems likely that we will continue to see similar news all this year announcing new partnerships and executions of Matter.

Silicon Labs has made it clear that it is all-in on Matter and offers a huge portfolio of hardware and software focused on Matter. To get started on a new Matter project with Silicon Labs, check out these links:

Ken Briodagh is a writer and editor with two decades of experience under his belt. He is in love with technology and if he had his druthers, he would beta test everything from shoe phones to flying cars. In previous lives, he’s been a short order cook, telemarketer, medical supply technician, mover of the bodies at a funeral home, pirate, poet, partial alliterist, parent, partner and pretender to various thrones. Most of his exploits are either exaggerated or blatantly false.

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