“Creating accessible, individualized education for all runs deep in the company’s DNA. Portal Schools is a diverse and personalized high school/early college education program catering to the community surrounding Belkin’s California campus. “In the last 12 months, we’ve achieved key milestones in our journey to reduce our carbon emissions, eliminate single-use plastics and drive towards a circular economy,” said Wei.īeyond what Belkin can offer consumers, the brand also supports an initiative called Portal Schools. Throughout its offerings, the company practices start-to-finish sustainability efforts. As for Belkin brand-products, it worked with Apple on the new Continuity Camera Mount that lets you turn your iPhone into a webcam for a Macbook in macOS Ventura. Wemo saw the launch of its first video doorbell this year while Phyn’s smart water management devices are preventing house floods and even helping customers limit water waste in areas faced with drought. “Using deep consumer insights on how people interact with their tech, we uncover the spine-tingling solutions that take the guesswork out of consumers’ hands to create a seamless, innovative user experience.”īelkin is the parent company of two sub-brands we’re familiar with at Tom’s Guide, Wemo and Phyn. “For decades we have called ourselves a people-inspired company, and that’s because of how we make our products,” said Jen Wei, vice president of global communications and corporate development at Belkin. Though it's best known for its high-quality charging and mobile accessories, there’s a lot more to recognize when it comes to Belkin’s approach to products, diverse division portfolio, sustainability efforts and community outreach. “I believe that people will start seeing Matter in the holiday selling season, and definitely at CES and beyond in 2023.” Brand of the Year Brand of the Year: Belkinīelkin might not be a household name, but we can’t speak highly enough about this company. “You’re going to see a lot of companies talking about Matter embedded in devices, and Matter being upgradable to devices that are in homes,” Mindala-Freeman said. Despite some delays, Matter is in its last leg of validation work to ensure as seamless a transition as possible for consumers and companies to the active protocol. Testing is in its final stages with the official roll out on pace for fall 2022. There are over 250 “members” that are committed to the CSA’s standard. This is something that’s going to impact consumers with household brands everyday, in every way.” “This is something that is not just a Silicon Valley innovation. “This isn’t just the big ecosystem players, this isn’t just Google, Apple and Amazon,” said Mindala-Freeman.

Still, according to ABI research, 5.5 billion Matter-compliant devices will ship between 20 from both major and smaller smart home companies involved.

There won’t need to be a “lag time” between launching the standard and having the hardware out there.

Matter is going to be more tangible and more real to consumers, faster than any other technology standard I’ve ever seen.”Īt launch, there will be an upgradable base of Matter-capable devices that are already in homes, meaning you won’t need to replace a number of products you already own. “Standards don’t usually come to mind when you think of innovation however, this isn’t just a technical standard for engineers. “This is the first protocol that is unifying the industry’s biggest players, to address what are the biggest challenges for the IoT, specifically for consumers' interoperability and choice,” said Michelle Mindala-Freeman, head of marketing and member services, CSA. Ask anyone who uses or works with smart home devices - getting all your devices to play nice together is rarely easy. It’s actually a connectivity protocol that is poised to make all your smart home gadgets work together seamlessly, even if they’re made by different brands. If you’ve been following the smart home space, you’ve probably heard of Matter, or the effort put forth by the Connectivity Standards Alliance, or CSA, to unite connected devices. (Image credit: Connectivity Standards Alliance)

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