Re: [w3ctag/design-reviews] Web of Things (WoT) Profile - Review Requested (Issue #818)

> Also, we have noticed that [Matter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_(standard)) is gaining traction. Does the WoT profile play with other initiatives like this, or are they completely unrelated?

I will defer to @mmccool on the overall implementation status, but perhaps as an editor of the WoT Profiles specification I can provide some input on this specific point.

Matter is certainly an interesting new standard, particularly in the consumer smart home space, due to its cross-vendor support. After several years of marketing, commercial products are finally starting to trickle onto the market, and whilst Matter is not yet quite living up to its interoperability promises it is certainly a welcome development in that space.

However, Matter is just one of a very large number of different protocols in what remains a very heterogeneous Internet of Things, with a [wide range of protocols](https://www.emnify.com/iot-glossary/guide-iot-protocols) at [various layers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_things#Comparison_of_technologies_by_layer) of the networking stack used for different [use cases](https://w3c.github.io/wot-usecases/#sec-horizontal-ucs) and [application domains](https://w3c.github.io/wot-usecases/#sec-vertical-ucs). I would suggest that the Web of Things should not be seen as a competitor to those protocols, but rather a bridge between them.

There are two ways a Matter device might be integrated with the Web of Things:
1. By describing a Matter device directly using a [Thing Description](https://www.w3.org/TR/wot-thing-description11/) via a Matter [binding specification](https://w3c.github.io/wot-binding-templates/), for which a [liason](https://w3c.github.io/wot-charter-drafts/wot-wg-2023-draft.html#external-coordination) with the Connectivity Standards Alliance has been proposed for the next charter
2. By bridging Matter devices on a local network to the Web of Things on the Internet, using an IoT gateway which exposes the device using a common web protocol which can be directly consumed by web services

The latter is where I think the current WoT Profiles specification comes in, and is the approach taken by my [company's](https://krellian.com/) own Web of Things [gateway](https://krellian.com/products/hub/) [implementation](https://github.com/WebThingsIO/gateway/) (which bridges a large number of different IoT protocols to the Web of Things) and [cloud service](https://krellian.com/services/cloud/) (which consumes devices using that standardised interface).

I hope that helps, but I am happy to answer any follow-up questions if I can.

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