Silicon Labs has opened a connectivity laboratory at its Boston, Massachusetts, facility for developers to test Matter prototypes.

The lab simulates a modern smart home, with a range of IoT devices, applications, ecosystems and networks. It offers developers an environment to test their Matter prototypes operating within real-world scenarios across various protocols and device brands.

“At the end of the day, every developer is focused on the consumer’s experience at home,” said Colin Cureton, senior director at Silicon Labs. “The connectivity lab offers a home environment to explore interoperability and test and refine products to give developers confidence as they bring innovative products to market.”

To date, the industry has focused on testing Matter devices in single-use environments and on how the Matter application layer functions in a connectivity stack. The connectivity lab advances Matter device testing to offer a home-within-a-lab setting in which developers can explore the many variables and possible device and network configurations consumers have in their homes.

Silicon Labs created a home-like setting including kitchen and living room with various smart home devices and applications, from lighting to locks and thermostats, as well as entertainment systems. By testing Matter devices as they will be used in homes, developers can find, troubleshoot and resolve issues consumers might face.

“The connectivity lab ties together our internal ecosystem device testing with the consumer’s experience at home,” said Sarah Scannell, senior engineering director at Silicon Labs. “This is incredibly valuable to our engineering teams and our customers to see first-hand the interoperability and performance impact our pre-release software has on the end-user experience.”

The lab is designed to test connectivity and interoperability for Matter devices within the most common Matter ecosystems, such as Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Home and Samsung SmartThings. These ecosystems are the primary ways consumers interact with smart home devices, so the lab allows developers and designers to gain knowledge about their products and confidence in their products’ real-world performance.