Since AirPlay and Chromecast came into our lives, one of the tasks most requested by millions of users was greatly simplified: taking the image from the phone to television without cables. The send image icon is already something perfectly recognizable for Android users, but it seems that we are going to have a third player in the game who aims to offer the same thing, but in his own way.
What is Matter Casting?
Amazon's idea is to offer the power to clone the image of a device on a screen in a completely simple and transparent way. Today this may seem like it already exists, but in reality Chromecast and AirPlay require a number of hardware or licenses specific so that the devices can agree and share the image. That's why not all televisions offer AirPlay, not all devices accept Chromecast. Well, with Matter Casting it won't be like that.
Based on communications protocol Matter (where Amazon is also one of its founders), the technology would allow the image to be shared between two devices that simply offer compatibility with the standard.
For now, Compatible devices are the Echo Show 15 and Fire TV, which will be able to receive the image directly from the Prime Video application, and soon from others such as Plex, STARZ, Pluto TV, Sling TV and ZDF, which will be updated in the coming months to offer the function.
Does it only work with Fire TV devices?
At first it might seem that this new standard will only reach Amazon devices, which would leave the idea at the same level as Chromecast and AirPlay. But actually, Matter Casting is an open technology standard, so it will be a matter of time before other manufacturers include it in their devices. The idea is that image sharing options are available on as many devices as possible, hence the standard is open and easy to implement.
In principle, any manufacturer with a Fire TV-based platform will receive the feature immediately, but they will still be able to integrate the protocol into their own platform if they wish, so the options are huge.
The growth of Matter
The communication protocol that wants to simplify everything continues to grow, and with the incorporation of Matter Casting the possibilities expand much more, and with a lot of sense. With televisions and interconnected devices, sending the image could be one more function of an entire ecosystem managed from the same base, without imposing what platform is used or what device one has.
Source: Amazon