Mesh Networks Are About To Escape Apple, Amazon and Google Silos (ieee.org)
(Friday December 26, 2025 @09:00PM (msmash)
from the threading-the-needle dept.)
- Reference: 0180462117
- News link: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/25/12/27/002258/mesh-networks-are-about-to-escape-apple-amazon-and-google-silos
- Source link: https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/mesh-network-interoperable-thread-2674366349
After more than two decades of promises and false starts in the mesh networking space, the smart home standards that Apple, Amazon and Google have each championed are finally set to [1]escape their respective brand silos and work together in a single unified network.
Starting January 1, 2026, Thread 1.4 becomes the Thread Group's only certified standard, bringing a crucial new capability called credential sharing. Devices from different manufacturers can now securely join the same mesh network -- an Amazon Echo Show and an Apple HomePod mini in the same house will both be able to control the same Nanoleaf lightbulb. This marks a significant departure from Thread 1.3, released in 2022, where each brand's mesh network connected only to devices from that same brand.
The Thread Group launched in 2014 as a coalition led by Arm, Google's Nest Labs, and Samsung, later welcoming Apple and Amazon into the fold. Thread 1.4 handles low-power smart home devices and sensors, but homes also need high-bandwidth connections for laptops and phones. Wi-Fi 7 mesh serves that purpose and the Matter protocol acts as a translation layer between the two different mesh networks. Both Wi-Fi 7 and Matter arrived in products on store shelves in 2025.
[1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/mesh-network-interoperable-thread-2674366349
Starting January 1, 2026, Thread 1.4 becomes the Thread Group's only certified standard, bringing a crucial new capability called credential sharing. Devices from different manufacturers can now securely join the same mesh network -- an Amazon Echo Show and an Apple HomePod mini in the same house will both be able to control the same Nanoleaf lightbulb. This marks a significant departure from Thread 1.3, released in 2022, where each brand's mesh network connected only to devices from that same brand.
The Thread Group launched in 2014 as a coalition led by Arm, Google's Nest Labs, and Samsung, later welcoming Apple and Amazon into the fold. Thread 1.4 handles low-power smart home devices and sensors, but homes also need high-bandwidth connections for laptops and phones. Wi-Fi 7 mesh serves that purpose and the Matter protocol acts as a translation layer between the two different mesh networks. Both Wi-Fi 7 and Matter arrived in products on store shelves in 2025.
[1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/mesh-network-interoperable-thread-2674366349
Surveillance Capitalism at its fines! (Score:4, Insightful)
by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 )
These companies will compete with each other to the death, yet they'll also cooperate with each other to rape citizens' privacy and move them ever further toward becoming chattel / cattle. (Are cattle automatically chattels? I'm not sure).
Anyway, it seems to me that interoperability like that described in TFA serves corporations more than it serves consumers. "Divide and Conquer" has an oft ignored corollary: "Unite and Rule".
Re: (Score:1)
by davidwr ( 791652 )
> Are cattle automatically chattels?
In some places, cattle are considered holy.
Is there anyplace left where customers/users are worshiped like gods?
Best part? telemetry from inside your home. (Score:2)
by laxr5rs ( 2658895 )
let the Big Tech companies watch!
...and it's deprecated. Fuck you, buy another. (Score:3)
by paul_engr ( 6280294 )
NT
Tor (Score:2)
by dohzer ( 867770 )
Y'all got any of those onion mesh networks hiding in the silos?
Next year's Xmas lights.. (Score:2)
will be individually addressable LEDs on a wire driven by a local LLM!
Re: (Score:2)
That would be the ultimate evolution of der blinkenlichten