Electrical manufacturer Legrand Group announced its first Matter-enabled smart lighting products at CES on Tuesday, crediting Amazon’s Alexa Connect Kit for enabling its engineers to quickly design five new Wi-Fi products that will be added to the company’s Radiant Collection of smart lighting controls. Although Legrand hasn’t released prices, it says it expects to ship all five of the new in-wall and plug-in devices in the first quarter of 2024.
Legrand says each of these new products also features Amazon’s Frustration-Free setup with Alexa. If you buy one of them from Amazon.com, and the purchase is linked to your Alexa account during checkout, the delivered device will automatically attempt to connect to your Wi-Fi network the moment it’s powered on. That in turn promises to make Alexa set-up as easy as opening the box and connecting the product to power.
The 15-amp Legrand Radiant smart plug (model number WWMP10) will be the first product in the collection to ship. It will be followed by the in-wall WWMRL10WH smart switch, WWMRL51WH smart dimmer, and 15-amp WWMRR15WH smart receptacle. Those will be followed by the WWMP31 dual outdoor smart plug.
In its press release, Legrand touted Matter’s multi-admin functionality that permits smart devices like these new Radiant products to connect with multiple smart home platforms at the same time. If you settle on a Samsung or Alexa smart home hub today, you should be able to easily switch to an Apple or any other Matter-certified controller down the road.
The Radiant Collection’s Matter-enabled devices connect directly to a home’s Wi-Fi network and are controlled with approved Matter controllers or hubs, including the latest from Amazon, Google, Apple, and Samsung.
Legrand says Matter connectivity will eliminate the need for another smartphone app or plugin, since homeowner can use the latest smart home platforms and assistants to set up their Matter devices.
Author: James Barber, Freelance Contributor
James has worked in music as a producer, A&R executive, music publisher, manager and record store clerk. He writes about music, technology and movies from his home in Georgia.