Apple quietly adds Thread smart home radios to its latest iPads, iMacs and MacBooks

Recent reports have been surfacing that the most recent generation of iPad, iMac and MacBook contain the Thread smart home radio, which was announced as an included feature of the latest iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max models. The radio, which is an integral part of the Matter ecosystem for smart home technology, being a wireless protocol for "Internet of Things" devices to communicate with each other.

The discovery was first seen within the FCC filings for these new devices, showing that the Thread radios have been tested for compliance. The list of devices that have undergone this certification and testing is as follows:

• iPad Pro 13-inch (M4) (Wi-Fi + Cellular)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (M4) (Wi-Fi + Cellular)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (M4) (Wi-Fi)
• iPad Air 11-inch (M2) (Wi-Fi + Cellular)
• iPad Air 13-inch (M2) Wi-Fi
• MacBook Air 15-inch (M3)
• MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3)
• MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3 Pro or M3 Max)
• MacBook Pro 16-inch (M3 Pro or M3 Max)
• iMac (M3, two ports)
• iMac (M3, four ports)

Interestingly not every SKU of each device has been tested, for example the iPad Pro 13-inch Wi-Fi model is not listed among the FCC filings. Whether this means that this particular SKU doesn't have the chip, or it has yet to be tested and certified, remains to be seen.

The key feature of the Thread radio is the fact that the standard is based on IP, allowing for any Thread-compatible product to communicate with any other IP based technology, such as smartphones, tablets and more. Matter itself can run on these Thread radios and is expected to be more widely adopted across lower power technologies such as locks and motion sensors.

The fact that Apple is including these radios within its devices is likely to mean that it will introduce further Matter support in coming software updates, and allow its devices to communicate with Thread and Matter-supporting smart home devices in the future. Whether this gets announced at WWDC 2024 for the next round of software updates, or at another time, is currently unknown.

Source: The Verge