Article for context:https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/12/23870522/iphone-15-pro-max-thread-smartphones (Ik that I am talking about multiple companies when I refer to android companies but many singular companies make more innovations in the phone space compared to apple)
There's a new protocol for smart home devices called Matter, that let's them work across ecosystems (so for example smart lights set up with Google Home could be controlled through Apple HomeKit via Matter). Thread is part of how Matter devices communicate with each other (instead of e.g. WiFi or Bluetooth). The new iPhones can directly use Thread instead of needing another devices to act as a bridge to "translate" the commands
A fairly niche addition, but definitely not useless. And a big plus for those into smart home stuff
I think it's more useful than those glyphs on the nothing phone. They're just a gimmick to sell a mediocre mid-end phone
Eh not really if you're actually using mesh networked smart home devices that run on zigbee/thread/wave/matter or whatever you're using some kind of controller with one of those radios in it. Using your phone as the only controller basically means you'd only be able to control/talk to those devices when your phone is on and at home, so forget any kind of automations if you're not around. If you already have a controller, it's most certainly networked so having a matter radio in your phone is basically pointless.
Huh. Did a little reading and it honestly does sound pretty useful. I'm not crazy about the corporate sponsorship of the consortium but there's a lot of open source licensing to promote adoption so it's not all bad. Neat. I could get behind doing a couple little custom home automation projects using that kind of network.