Happy holidays! Tis the season for trimming trees, hanging lights, baking cookies... and spending two weeks at home trying to figure out why you cant get the lights to automatically come on at night, and which of those stupid bulbs is causing all the rest to not work. Truly the most wonderful time of the year.Every year on The Vergecast, we like to get into the holiday spirit by getting deep into the weeds on one of the most important specs, protocols, or systems that we all encounter every day. This year, for our annual Holiday Spec-tacular, were taking on everyones favorite kinda-sorta functional smart home protocol: Matter.Matter is supposed to be the thing that makes the smart home work, that allows everything from your lights to your fridge to your vacuum cleaner to seamlessly connect. In reality, it is, well, not that. But it might be on its way! We begin the show with Nilay, David, and The Verges Jennifer Pattison Tuohy talking about the state of Matter, and where the smart home has made strides and made mistakes this year. We also talk about Thread. A lot. More than we expected.After that, the trio competes in a game to see who understands the complicated, overlapping jargon of the Matter universe best. (Its a tight race, but the right person wins in the end.) And finally, Paulus Schoutsen, the creator of Home Assistant and president of the Open Home Foundation, joins the show to talk about what its like to work with Matter and whether were ever going to get the smart home of our dreams.This is our last episode of the year well be back with a live episode at CES, and if youre going to be in Vegas we hope youll come join us! In the meantime, have a wonderful holiday, and may all your smart lights always be the right color. If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started:See you in 2025!