AirPlay and Chromecast (Google Cast) are the world's two most popular media casting features. While AirPlay is restricted to Apple's platforms, Chromecast is largely restricted to Google's Android. It means casting media from an iPhone to a TV that only features Chromecast is not usually possible, and that puts brakes on the user experience. To solve that issue, a new open standard has been developed: Matter Casting.
This new feature has been under development at least since 2021.
Matter Casting is developed by Matter, an open smart home ecosystem
As a part of its CES 2024 announcements, Amazon revealed that Matter Casting is coming to its Fire TV-powered devices and the Prime Video app. Amazon is the first big company to implement Matter Casting, an open alternative to AirPlay and Chromecast. This new protocol lets you send videos and related content from an app wirelessly to a compatible display. This new feature is now available in the Prime Video app on Android and iOS, but you can currently cast videos from the app using Matter Casting to just the Echo Show 15. Support for more devices will be added in a phased manner.
This new media casting protocol will soon be supported by smart TVs that are powered by Amazon's Fire TV operating system. At CES 2024, Amazon announced a collaboration with Panasonic, and the latter of the two has unveiled OLED TVs powered by Fire TV OS. Those TVs will also get Matter Casting compatibility. In terms of apps, only the Prime Video app supports the new protocol, but it will soon come to Plex, Pluto, Sling TV, Starz, and ZDF video apps. More app developers and TV makers can implement Matter Casting in their devices without any additional certification or royalty fee.
Speaking of casting content wirelessly, Samsung recently announced its first smart speaker, the Music Frame. You can watch our hands-on video of the new speaker below.
Author's Note: Matter Casting is an open alternative to AirPlay and Chromecast, and several tech firms, including Amazon, Apple, Google, LG, and Samsung back Matter. However, it is likely that Apple and Google won't bring Matter Casting to their products and platforms anytime soon. Apple made a deal with all major smart TV firms, including Hisense, LG, Samsung, Sony, and TCL, to bundle AirPlay compatibility. Google's Chromecast is used by several TV firms, including Sony and TCL. Google also partnered with LG to bring Chromecast to WebOS-powered TVs. So, these firms could continue using those features rather than implementing Matter Casting.
