While device types represent complete, complex functionalities, clusters are the individual building blocks responsible for implementing single, simple functionalities.
For example, a Dimmable Color Temperature Light device type combines several clusters: On/Off for turning the light on and off, Level Control for dimming, and Color Control for changing the light color.
Matter clusters specification
As with device types, there is a list of clusters described in the Matter specification. It is possible to create new clusters and use them in products with uncertified status, or contribute them to the Matter organization and work to grant them certifiable status.
Note
If the specification doesn’t include a cluster you need, you can create and use a custom one. However, custom functionality cannot be certified, meaning the Connectivity Standard Alliance (CSA) organization does not guarantee its quality to users. To achieve certifiable status, you must contribute the specification, get it approved, and convince at least two other vendors to support it (three total).
The Matter specification consists of several parts:
The Matter Core Specification describes the clusters that are common to all Matter device types and are related to the core protocol functionalities. The Matter Application Cluster Library Specification describes the clusters that can be used in the specific application use cases and application device types.
Clusters content
In the Matter Application Cluster Specification, similarly to device types, you can find different clusters that are grouped depending on their use cases. Every cluster description includes a few sections that you should consider when deciding to support that cluster in your application. Additionally, from a Data Model perspective, the clusters consist of attributes, commands, and events that are used for different kinds of data representation.
Revision History
This section includes a table with a list of revisions used for the particular cluster and a description of changes between the revisions. It is important to make sure that your application supports proper revision, as otherwise, for example, some features that you meant to use may not be available.
Cluster ID
This section contains the cluster identifier, which must be unique across all available clusters, and the cluster name.
Features
This section lists the features that the cluster can support. The section can be empty if the cluster does not support any feature variants. Features are represented as single bits in the FeatureMap attribute (maximum 32 bit long), where 0 means the feature is disabled and 1 means it is enabled.
For example, a Door Lock cluster has multiple features that determine a way of inserting credentials, such as using pin (PIN), RFID (RID), fingerprint (FGP). Assuming that Door Lock would have only these three features and they would be assigned: PIN to bit 0, RID to bit 1 and FGP to bit 2. The configuration that supports fingerprint and RFID would have a feature map value equal to 0x6 (0b110).
1 1 0
FPG RID PIN
Every feature has an assigned bit, code, and conformance, indicating whether it is mandatory (M), optional (O), or depends on some other feature value. The reason for that is that some features may be enabled only if another feature is enabled as well, or on the other hand there are mutually exclusive features that cannot be used at the same time.
Supporting specific features may result in the possibility of supporting additional attributes, commands, and events. The additional elements can be optional (marked with brackets: [FEATURE_CODE]) or mandatory (marked without brackets: FEATURE_CODE) for this feature.
For example, the Door Position Sensor (DPS) feature from a Door Lock cluster allows you to optionally ([DPS]) enable the OpenPeriod attribute, but it also requires a mandatory (DPS) support for the DoorState attribute.
Attributes
Attributes provide information about the current state of the cluster. Some of the attributes can be constant, and their purpose is to allow for reading and informing about device capabilities.
For example, in the Door Lock cluster, there is an attribute for the number of supported users.
Another use case for an attribute is to keep the current state of a value that may change over time. For example, in the Door Lock cluster, the LockState attribute changes its value based on the physical lock state.
The most important elements of every attribute are:
ID – unique identifier in the scope of the cluster
Name – unique name in the scope of the cluster
Type – data type, such as bool, string, integer, or some custom data structure
Constraint – limits for the value, such as min and max allowed values for the numeric types
Access – what the client device can do with the attribute – read it (R) or write it (W), and what level of access is required – view (V) or modify (M). For example, you need the view privilege to do the read action, and the modify privilege to do the write.
Conformance – informs whether the attribute is optional (O), mandatory (M), or depends on selected features
The following table presents a few examples of attributes from a Door Lock cluster:
ID
Name
Type
Constraint
Access
Conformance
0x0000
LockState
LockStateEnum
–
R V
M
0x0012
NumberOfPINUsersSupported
uint16
all
R V
PIN
0x0021
Language
string
max 3
R[W] VM
O
Events
Events are historical records used to provide information about changes over time. In comparison to attributes, they cannot be used to get information about the current state of the device, but to monitor how that state is changing.
For example, the Thread Network Diagnostics cluster has a ConnectionStatus event that is sent every time the device changes its connection state between connected and disconnected. This way, you know if the network is stable, which would be difficult based only on the current connection state.
The most important elements of every attribute are:
ID – unique identifier in the scope of the cluster
Name – unique name in the scope of the cluster
Priority – the priority of the information compared to other events, the available values are DEBUG, INFO, and CRITICAL. As the device has limited buffering capabilities for the events, if the buffer is full, the priority is a factor deciding which events are kept or dropped.
Access – what level of access is required to interact with it, usually it’s View only.
Conformance – informs whether the attribute is optional (O), mandatory (M) or depends on selected features
The following table presents an example of an event from a Thread Network Diagnostics cluster:
ID
Name
Priority
Access
Conformance
0x00
ConnectionStatus
INFO
V
O
Commands
Commands are the triggers sent by the client device to request a specific action from the server device. The actions taken in response to command reception can be very simple or a sequence of complex operations, depending on the command specification.
Considering the structure, the simplest command does not include any additional data, triggers some behavior just by receiving it, and does not require any additional data besides confirmation that it was applied in response. For example, the On command from the On/Off cluster results in changing the OnOff attribute state.
An example of a command that contains additional data is the SetPINCode command from the DoorLock cluster that includes information about the specific user and pin code to be set by the receiving device.
In turn, the GetPINCode command from the DoorLock cluster is a perfect example of a command that uses additional data in both the request and the response. In the request, the client device provides data with the user ID, and in the response, the server device provides the user data and the PIN code.
The most important elements of every attribute are:
ID – unique identifier in the scope of the cluster
Name – unique name in the scope of the cluster
Direction – informs whether a command is sent from the client to the server or in the opposite direction
Response – informs whether the response is a default confirmation or a more complex response command specified by a name
Access – what level of access is required to interact with it, such as Operate (O), Timed (T) or Administer (A)
Conformance – informs whether the attribute is optional (O), mandatory (M) or depends on selected features
The following table presents an example of an event from a Door Lock cluster:
ID
Name
Direction
Response
Access
Conformance
0x00
LockDoor
client->server
Y
O T
M
0x05
SetPINCode
client->server
Y
A T
!USR & PIN
0x06
GetPINCode
client->server
GetPINCodeResponse
A
!USR & PIN
0x06
GetPINCodeResponse
client<-server
N
!USR & PIN
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•Matter over Thread support for nRF54LM20A and nRF54LM20B SoCs. •Matter over Wi-Fi® support for nRF54LM20A combined with the nRF7002-EB II shield. •Released the Matter Cluster Editor app v1.0.1 and Matter Quick Start app v1.1.0.
MCUboot & Partition Manager
•Single-Slot DFU and RAM Load mode are both promoted to fully supported •Partition Manager is officially deprecated in favor of Zephyr's devicetree-based partitioning.
