Shelly is turning its Wall Display into something unusual for smart homes: both a Matter controller and a Matter device at the same time. With firmware 2.8.0 announced for the Wall Display lineup, the same panel on your wall can act like a hub that admits and runs other Matter products, while also showing up as real hardware in apps like Apple Home and Google Home. Shelly is calling this a first for a smart home wall panel, because until now these panels have had to choose one side or the other.
Shelly’s pitch is simple: you add Matter lights, shades, thermostats, plugs, fans or sensors straight to the Wall Display, control them on the screen like native Shelly gear, then expose the panel itself into the bigger smart home platforms you already use. The update is planned as a free, over the air firmware release for supported models. Shelly has announced the feature set but has not given a specific rollout date, so this is about what is coming, not what is already on every device.
What Matter controller and Matter device actually mean
In Matter terms, a controller is the brain that admits new products to your home and runs them, the role that an Apple TV, a Nest Hub or a SmartThings hub plays. A device is the accessory that gets admitted, like a light bulb, plug, fan, switch or thermostat.
Shelly points out that until now wall-mounted smart panels have been one or the other: either the hub that you add things to, or an accessory that some other system controls. With this update, the Wall Display does both jobs at once. That means it can manage third-party Matter gear on its own, while also exposing its own switches and thermostat back to Apple, Google, Amazon and other Matter systems as if it were a regular piece of hardware.
Using the Wall Display as a Matter controller
As a controller, the updated Wall Display can admit and run Matter devices from any brand that talks Matter. There is no bridge, separate hub or second app required on top, because Shelly runs the open-source Matter software stack directly inside the panel. You do not need Google Play Services or a third-party hub to make this work.
The list of supported Matter device types includes lights, covers, blinds and shades, thermostats, fans, plugs and sensors. Setup happens right on the screen by entering the Matter setup code printed on the device or packaging. Once added, those Matter products behave like ordinary Shelly components in the Wall Display interface: they get the same kinds of names and units, like switch, light, cover, temperature, and brightness in percent.
That consistency matters for automations and scripts. An automation for a Matter smart bulb is written the same way as one for a Shelly relay, and scripts reach Matter gear through the same paths they use for Shelly hardware. Devices report their state changes to the panel instead of waiting for the controller to poll them, so room changes such as turning a light on or a fan off show up right away and any linked automation reacts immediately.
How the Wall Display appears in Apple, Google, Amazon and other Matter systems
On the flip side, the Wall Display itself acts as a Matter device in other Matter-based systems. When you add it to Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, SmartThings, Home Assistant or another Matter controller, it appears as real hardware, not just a bridge. Its relay outputs show up as switches, so you can toggle whatever they control from those apps.
If the Wall Display is fitted with a dimmer power supply, that part comes through as a dimmable light with brightness control. If the room thermostat is enabled, it also appears in those Matter systems: the panel reports the room temperature and lets you adjust the target temperature in half-degree steps. The Wall Display can belong to several Matter systems at once, and removing it from one does not disturb its connection to the others, which gives you more freedom to mix ecosystems in the same home.
What you need and how it works
Matter controller and device support together will come to specific Wall Display models: Wall Display X1i, X2i, XL, U1, S1, S2 and XT. On those models, the panel is both the Matter controller for other products and a Matter device itself for higher level systems like Apple Home or Google Home. First-generation Wall Display and Wall Display X2 get Matter device control only, which means they can use Matter devices shared from a newer panel but do not present themselves as Matter devices to other hubs.
In practical terms, you add any of those Matter device types directly to a supported Wall Display by entering each product’s Matter setup code. If you have more than one panel in the house, you can share those Matter devices between them. Sharing uses an authorized, code-based pairing that stays open for three minutes, and either side can end the sharing at any time; once shared, the tile works on every panel with live status and full control.
There is an important detail for Thread-based Matter products. Shelly is clear that Thread devices still need their own Thread Border Router, which is the role played by things like some smart speakers, routers or hubs that speak Thread. A Thread device that is already made available through a compatible hub can then be added to the Wall Display by using the Matter setup code that hub gives you. The panel itself does not replace the Thread Border Router.
Security checks and ownership details
Security for Matter onboarding is not just about pairing codes. Every Matter device carries a certificate that proves it is what it says it is. The Connectivity Standards Alliance can withdraw those certificates if something serious goes wrong, for example if the keys behind an entire product line leak.
The Wall Display keeps a register of withdrawn certificates published by the Alliance and checks every device against that list during setup. If the certificate for a device has been withdrawn, the user sees a warning before commissioning finishes and can decide whether to continue or not. If a device tries to join through the local API instead of normal onboarding, the Wall Display refuses it outright, since there is no user present to make that call. Shelly notes that the register is only as current as the last firmware update, so the warning system depends on how up to date the panel is.
On the ownership side, local scenes, automations and scripting run directly on the panel and come at no extra charge with every Wall Display. For people who use Shelly’s cloud features, app control, historical data and cloud scenes for Matter devices are planned to follow as part of Shelly’s premium tier later in September, bringing cloud features to the same Matter gear that the Wall Display manages locally.
View the original press release.
