Matter’s first releases focused on the basics: lights, plugs, thermostats, locks. Useful, but limited to comfort and control. Matter 1.4, released in November 2024, expanded the standard into a territory with much higher stakes — the devices that manage how electricity enters, is stored in, and flows out of a home.
For homeowners and developers working on home energy management systems (HEMS), this is the release that actually matters.
What Matter 1.4 Added
EV Supply Equipment (EVSE)
Electric vehicle chargers are now first-class Matter devices. The EVSE device type in Matter 1.4 defines a standard way to:
- Read current charging state (charging, paused, fault, idle)
- Set charging limits — maximum current or energy cap per session
- Schedule charging windows (for time-of-use tariff optimisation)
- Query session energy consumption
This is a meaningful addition because EV chargers are typically the second-largest controllable load in a home with a heat pump, and they’re perfectly suited to demand response — you want them charging when electricity is cheap and solar generation is high, not during peak pricing windows.
Before Matter 1.4, every EV charger had its own proprietary app and API. A Matter-certified EVSE can be controlled by any Matter controller — Home Assistant, Apple Home, Google Home, or a dedicated energy management platform — using a standard interface.
Solar Inverters
Solar inverter integration via Matter 1.4 allows controllers to read:
- Current generation output (watts)
- Cumulative generation (kWh)
- Inverter operating state
- Export/import readings at the inverter level
This makes solar generation data available to any Matter controller without requiring the inverter vendor’s proprietary cloud connection. For home energy management applications — deciding when to charge a battery, when to run an EV charger, when to fire up a dishwasher — having local, real-time solar data is the foundation.
Battery Storage Systems
Home battery storage is one of the most complex devices to integrate because the optimal control strategy depends on real-time electricity prices, solar forecast, and grid state. Matter 1.4’s battery storage device type exposes:
- State of charge (percentage and energy in kWh)
- Charge/discharge rate (current power flow)
- Operating mode (charge from grid, charge from solar, discharge to home, idle)
- Energy capacity
The mode control is the key piece. A HEMS application can now tell a Matter-certified battery: “charge from solar only” or “discharge to home” — without needing the battery vendor’s SDK.
Heat Pump Controllers
Heat pump operation can now be surfaced through Matter 1.4’s heat pump device type. Controllers can read operating state, setpoint, and mode, and in supported configurations can adjust setpoints or trigger boost modes. This enables demand response schemes where a home’s heat pump is briefly modulated during peak grid demand in exchange for a reduced electricity tariff.
HRAP: Home Routers and Access Points
Matter 1.4 also defined the HRAP (Home Router and Access Point) device type — allowing home routers to be Matter-discoverable. This is primarily a matter of device inventory and network management rather than energy, but it completes the picture of a Matter home ecosystem.
Thread 1.4 and Border Router Requirements
The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) made a significant change alongside Matter 1.4: from January 2026, CSA certification requires Matter over Thread devices to ship with Thread 1.4 border router capability included in the device or accompanying hub, rather than relying on separate border router hardware.
Thread 1.4’s core networking improvements include:
- Border Router Advertisement Service (BRAS): Standardises how border routers advertise themselves on the local network, making multi-border-router Thread networks more stable
- Backbone Router improvements: Better handling of Thread network partitioning and re-joining
- Enhanced multicast: Improved handling of multicast traffic across the Thread/IP boundary
- 150-device scaling: Thread 1.4 networks are designed to handle up to 150 devices per border router, compared to lower practical limits in earlier versions
The practical implication for device buyers: Thread-enabled Matter devices certified after January 2026 should work with any Thread 1.4 border router in a compliant network, and hub-dependent devices should include border router capability in the hub.
Why This Matters for HEMS
Home energy management systems need local, real-time access to solar generation, battery state, EV charging load, and major controllable loads. Before Matter 1.4, building a HEMS meant integrating multiple vendor APIs — often cloud-dependent, often unstable, always proprietary.
With Matter 1.4, the pieces of a local HEMS can communicate through a common standard:
- Solar inverter reports current generation
- Battery storage receives instructions to charge from solar or discharge
- EVSE receives a charging schedule based on solar forecast and tariff
- Heat pump receives boost commands during low-tariff windows
Home Assistant is the most advanced open-source controller implementing this integration today, with active development on Matter energy cluster support. Commercial HEMS platforms from energy providers are also beginning to certify against Matter energy device types.
Adoption Timeline
Certified Matter 1.4 EVSE and solar inverter products were appearing through H1 2026, with the main EV charger manufacturers — Ohme, Easee, Wallbox — and inverter manufacturers — Sungrow, GoodWe — in various stages of Matter certification. Battery storage support is slower, partly because the control interface is more complex and partly because battery vendors have historically been reluctant to open their management APIs.
The full energy device ecosystem — inverter, battery, EVSE, and heat pump all Matter-certified and locally controllable — is likely a 2027–2028 reality for most consumers, but the foundation is now in the standard.