MATRIX Creator
MATRIX Labs, the creator of a Raspberry Pi-based development board for designing IoT home automation apps, has achieved Z-Wave Plus certification. According to MATRIX Labs co-founder and CEO Rodolfo Saccoman, the announcement marks the MATRIX Creator’s official introduction to the custom installation market.
“Following a rigorous evaluation process, Z-Wave certification for the MATRIX Creator serves as a significant vote of confidence from the residential trade community,” Saccoman emphasized. “It validates our claim that custom installers can successfully leverage MATRIX Creator and our proprietary MATRIX OS to build MATRIX-based IoT apps that perfectly complement any home automation system, and deliver functionality that may not be available through the large-scale automation systems.”
MATRIX Creator incorporates a Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA, an ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller, a range of sensors for motion, temperature, humidity, light, ultraviolet and infrared, an 8-microphone array, and a 35-LED array. The board, which can be programmed in 40 different languages, also incorporates integrated Z-Wave and zigBee communications plus connectivity via a wide range of analogue and digital input/output interfaces. It can also be used in standalone mode using its onboard processing capability.
“The reality is that integrators may not be able to satisfy all of their client’s requirements with a big-brand automation system,” Saccoman explained. “With the MATRIX Creator in their toolkit, though, they can seamlessly build and add customized functionality to accommodate any request beyond the system’s out-of-box capabilities. The MATRIX Creator fills in the gaps, serving to seamlessly pair with a whole-home automation system and satisfy all of a customer’s requests, no matter the ask.”
According to Saccoman, building with the MATRIX ecosystem of products, which also includes MATRIX Voice, MATRIX OS, and MATRIX App Store, provides integrators with a new revenue stream. Once a MATRIX-based app is built for one project, it can be productized and sold to all future clients who may require that same highly customized functionality.
“The MATRIX Creator has the ability to impact the home automation market in a legitimate way and create new solutions just as it has in the maker community,” said Mitchell Klein, executive director of the Z-Wave Alliance. “Installers can now address all client requirements — regardless of how out of the box they may be — and utilize those apps later to evolve their businesses. We welcome MATRIX Labs to the Alliance, and we look forward to seeing how their platform will be leveraged by our community of Z-Wave integrators.”
Z-Wave certification comes on the heels of a series of major 2017 corporate developments for MATRIX Labs, including a partnership with Premier Farnell to manufacture and distribute the MATRIX Creator, and the launch of their MATRIX Voice dev board, which equips Raspberry Pi projects with voice control functionality and fundraised over $120,000 on Indiegogo.
“We are thrilled with our continued 2017 momentum, and are truly honored to be recognized among home automation’s best products through our Z-Wave Certification,” Saccoman concluded. “The MATRIX Creator and our MATRIX ecosystem, in general, stands to transform the custom-installed and DIY automation markets, alike. When creating with the MATRIX Creator, the opportunities and possibilities are virtually limitless.”
IoT applications will be bought, sold, uploaded, and installed from the first-ever IoT app marketplace, the MATRIX App Store, which will support MATRIX OS, Android Things, and future IoT platforms.
