California-based Allion USA-SGS has been accredited by the Connectivity Standards Alliance as one of the world’s first Matter authorised test laboratories.

The company provides Matter certification testing and consulting services, supporting IoT vendors in the certification process and reducing time to market. Its goal is to help manufacturers produce high-quality products that meet consumer demands.

Matter is an IP-based smart home protocol for interoperability between IoT devices beyond a single ecosystem. With its network based on wifi, Bluetooth Low Energy and Thread, Matter not only enhances product privacy and security, it also provides a consistent standard for product evaluation. If a product is Matter-certified, it is compatible with all other Matter-enabled devices, allowing consumers to have IoT experiences across brands.

However, smart-home products should also have other AV certification and validation tests to win consumers’ trust. Certifications such as Amazon Alexa Voice Service, OCF, UPnP+, DLNA, HDMI, HDCP, HDR10+, 8K and IMax can show consumers that the product has undergone strict testing.

Besides certification tests, Allion USA-SGS arranges for user experience testing, also significant to products that support Matter. Quality of experience (QoE) can be measured in the test environment, set up to simulate a real user’s usage environment, such as a smart home, office or building.

For smart-home scenarios, Allion USA-SGS provides one-stop consultancy services including ecosystem interoperability and real-world testing, mobile app consultancy service, wireless infrastructure consulting service, security evaluation, and compliance and certification.

As an authorised test lab of over 30 certifications, Allion USA-SGS can not only assist with Matter certifications, but alsos provide wifi, Bluetooth, Thread, audio-video validations, and more. It says it provides brands a simple and convenient product certification process.

The company offers professional services in research, design, quality and production. Provided services include standard logo certification tests, customised engineering validation services, product ecosystem scenario testing, testing tool design, and consulting services.

• TÜV Rheinland now offers testing and certification for smart-home products according to the Matter communications standard.

“Users want intuitive device operation with maximum functionality and performance,” said Lourens Koopmans, senior expert for wireless technologies at TÜV Rheinland. “In addition, the devices should not only function in a specific smart-home system, but should be able to communicate with each other in different systems. Matter harmonises the different technical and legal country-specific features in a standardised protocol.”