A few years ago we moved into a new house. Because we plan to be there a long time, and because I will basically add a microcontroller to anything that’s not too fast to escape, we started building computer control into most of the systems in the house. The problem was, we had to choose which system we were going to use—interoperability between the different automation systems and the various voice-control intelligence systems wasn’t possible.
Today, interoperability is much more common. And in this issue we’ve got a technology that’s taking interoperability to another level. Matter is a communications standard that has the potential to take away a lot of the angst that comes with choosing a home control system; interoperability is the name of its game.
Home control is, in many ways, on the leading edge of artificial intelligence and system control coming together. You’ll find some who think that it’s not sufficiently sophisticated or complex to warrant the attention it receives but they’re wrong. There doesn’t have to be thousands of sensors on the front end or a massive IT infrastructure on the back end for a system to be a worthwhile subject for development and engineering.
Circuit Cellar has been covering home control since its earliest issues. Back then, home control networking was either proprietary or carried via RS-485 (or RS-232) and programmers fought for every bit of memory they could get. The lessons learned back then are still applicable on an architectural level today, though, and the things we learn by applying Matter to home control will be useful for years into the future.
Speaking of Bits—As I write this, electronics industry news is filled with warnings of a RAM shortage. For the first time in quite a while articles are being written about software developers who must be careful about just how much memory their applications use. If memory conservation is a requirement for applications, then embedded control designers have a solid leg up on the competition.
I’ve been handing out ESP32 and Arduino boards to young people for a while, along with a card that tells them how to download the IDE and start building sketches. This recent news has helped me feel better about that—I might be giving them a head start on a career, after all.
Control Alternatives—I love reading the projects that people send to Circuit Cellar and I think that we’re able to provide the best project-based content in the industry because of those projects. I’ve noticed, though, that the vast majority of the projects are based on some variant of the Arduino model, or some form of Raspberry Pi. Those are both great platforms (I have lots of each on my bench) but it makes me wonder whether anyone is using other platforms for projects. If you have a favorite platform that’s not based on an ARM chip or named for a fruit, let me know. And if you have created a project based on an alternative processor I would be very happy to work with you to turn it into an article.
Circuit Cellar has always been built on the strength of great readers. Let me know what you’re working with—and what you think we should be bringing you in the way of projects for the rest of 2026!
email: c.franklin@circuitcellar.com
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Issue Table of Contents can be found here,
as articles are made available online they will be linked.
PUBLISHED IN CIRCUIT CELLAR MAGAZINE • February #427 – Get a PDF of the issue
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Curtis Franklin has been a journalist working in the computer and technology fields for more than forty years. From his early career as a columnist at Computer Shopper and the founder of the BYTE Testing Lab, he has covered computing devices from handheld to supercomputing and applications from trivial to life-altering. In 1988, he was the first editor of an exciting startup publication that was then called Circuit Cellar INK. Since then, he has edited and written for publications including ComputerWorld, NetworkWorld, InfoWorld, InformationWeek, and Dark Reading. Most recently, he was Principal Analyst for Cybersecurity Management at Omdia.
Curtis co-wrote one of the first books on podcasting and has been a host or co-host on more than 500 episodes of various podcasts, including hundreds of episodes of This Week in Enterprise Technology, a production of the TWiT Podcast Network.
When not telling stories of computers and the people who make them, Curtis is an amateur radio operator (KG4GWA), an artist, and a Florida Master Naturalist. He’s also active in the maker community, working on the teams that produce Maker Faire Orlando and Maker Faire Miami.
