Home Mobile SDK for Android

To help you build Android applications that interact with Matter devices, Google has developed the Google Home Mobile SDK. The Mobile SDK includes two core APIs that allow your apps to commission and share devices with the Google fabric.

Once a device is added to the Google fabric, your users can control their devices through the Google Home app (GHA), Android power controls, voice, and Nest touch screen devices.

The Mobile SDK also allows you to define a custom commissioning service that you can use to commission devices to additional Matter ecosystems.

Integrate the Mobile SDK into your Android app

To get started, complete the following steps:

  1. Follow the instructions provided at Set up Google Play services.

  2. Add the Play services dependency to your build.gradle file:

    implementation 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-home:16.0.0-beta1'

Ensure module delivery

The Play services home module is optional, and thus Matter functionality will only be present on a user's device if an app on the device specifies the appropriate Play services module dependency in its AndroidManifest.xml file.

The GHA and Google Home Sample App for Matter both include this module dependency in their manifest. If you are integrating the Mobile SDK into your Android app, to ensure Matter support for users of your app, add the following service block to the application declaration within your AndroidManifest.xml file:

<service android:name="com.google.android.gms.metadata.ModuleDependencies"
    android:enabled="false"
    android:exported="false">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="com.google.android.gms.metadata.MODULE_DEPENDENCIES" />
    </intent-filter>

    <meta-data android:name="home:0:preferred" android:value=""/>
</service>

This is only supported for Android devices running Play services 22.50.14 or higher.

See the Sample App for Matter's manifest for an example implementation.

You can check the Home module availability at runtime by using ModuleInstallClient. See the Ensuring API availability with ModuleInstallClient page for more information.

Calling other Android apps

If you are using Android 11 or higher, you need to include the following queries block in the AndroidManifest.xml so that your app can make calls to other apps.

<queries>
    <!-- For GMS Core/Play service -->
        <package android:name="com.google.android.gms" />
        <package android:name="com.android.vending" />
    <!-- End of GMS Core/Play service-->
</queries>

For more information, see the Package visibility filtering on Android article.

Use the Google Home Sample App for Matter

To learn how the Mobile SDK works from an Android app, try our Sample App for Matter.

Try the Sample App for Matter

Build your own app

To help you get started fast, we've open-sourced the Sample App for Matter and provided a companion codelab, allowing you to customize our sample code for your own Android projects.

Go to the Sample App for Matter codelab

Resources

To learn more about the Mobile SDK, refer to the API Reference.

To learn how this SDK handles end-user data, refer to the Home Mobile SDK Google Play Data Safety Section