Matter and Thread explained: is the smart home finally fixed?

At IFA in Berlin last month, Philips Hue unveiled around two dozen new products that talk over Thread. Shelly, a company that had been openly sceptical, announced a firmware update to move its existing Gen4 devices from Wi-Fi to Thread. Aqara, Govee, Tado and a string of Chinese manufacturers piled in too. Yet the German trade site matter-smarthome.de came away from the show with a downbeat verdict: for some big…