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Code references point to increased smart home device support for Matter in the iOS 17.6 update

Posted on by darion

If you like controlling home accessories with your iPhone, you’ll love Apple’s upcoming iOS 17.6 update.

After checking the latest public code repository, the source code for an implementation of Matter, a smart home standard backed by Apple, was discovered. Matter is also open source, hence its public code repository.

The changes concern new features available in unannounced versions of Apple platforms:

The code additions relate to support for these new features, which will be available “mid-2024”. on iOS 17.6, macOS 14.6, watchOS 10.6 and tvOS 17.6 and includes the following:

  • release: “Mid 2024”

versions:
iOS: “17.6”
macOS: “14.6”
watchOS: “10.6”
tvOS: “17.6”

There’s no word on exactly which smart home devices will be supported by the update, but references appear to include more robust air quality monitoring, energy management, and water valves. There appear to be references in the code strings to monitoring CO, CO2, formaldehyde, PM10, PM2.5, PM1 and radon.

Other references point to devices such as robotic vacuum cleaners that were part of the Matter 1.2 update.

The commits in the Github repository have been assigned to the username bzbarsky-apple or Boris Zbarsky. References to Apple software have only been added in the last few days.

Zbarsky, a former software engineer at Mozilla, has been with Apple for four years.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

Via AppleInsider and Github (1, 2)