Smart home and house with iot gadgets concept

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Plume has announced it has joined the Connectivity Standards Alliance as a Participant Member.

Now, that all sounds a bit businessy, but it could mean a big boost for the smart home, as the CSA is home to both Matter and Zigbee, which both play a big role in powering our smart homes.

Home Routers and Access Points (HRAP) infrastructure was added to the Matter mix in last year’s 1.4 update and Plume’s expertise in the area could help to shape how that road goes in the immediate future.

Plume, once of SuperPods mesh fame, is now a Wi-Fi software specialist and its OpenSync open-source framework powers millions of devices for over 400 ISPs around the world.

The Matter 1.4 specification introduced the HRAP device type, which was a key architectural change allowing routers and access points to serve as both Wi-Fi access points and Thread Border Routers.

Most people won’t know or care what this means, they just want their smart home kit to work, but that’s why it’s interesting Plume is stepping up inside the CSA.

The router an ISP-provides is one of the most ubiquitous and powerful pieces of network hardware people readily have in their homes.

Plume will, presumably, be able to leverage its deep ISP relationships and the existing OpenSync-enabled hardware in the field to ramp up the Matter HRAP roadmap, and it obviously has a bunch of expertise in things like intelligent device and network management, predictive maintenance, services and apps, that could help to further hone other smart home standards like Zigbee, as well.

“Interoperability is core to how we build at Plume. The Alliance and its Members live by that mission by developing and promoting open standards like Matter and Zigbee,” said Chris Griffiths, Plume CTO.

“We are committed to increasing the level of standardization across the industry through our participation in the Alliance and other standards bodies. We look forward to contributing our expertise from working with hundreds of service providers to power better and more reliable experiences in the home.”

Plume’s arrival at the CSA follows the recent addition of CableLabs to the Board of Directors, plus Verizon last year.

AT&T also recently teamed up with Abode and Google for a new smart security platform, indicating that service providers and operators are now playing a bigger role in driving the smart home revolution.