Walk into any smart home product roadmap review in India and you will hear the same conversation. The team has identified AC control as a key use case. They are building a Matter integration layer. They have mapped out which OEMs have published their APIs. They are three quarters through the project and they have unlocked exactly four AC brands — covering perhaps 8% of the installed base.
This is not an execution failure. It is a framing failure. The team solved the problem they understood instead of the problem that existed.
The real constraint in the Indian market
Indian smart home deployment is not a software problem. It is a hardware heterogeneity problem. The installed base of ACs in Indian homes spans every brand, every era, every communication protocol — or no protocol at all. Voltas, Daikin, LG, Blue Star, Carrier, Hitachi, Godrej. Units from 2008 sitting next to units from 2023. No unified API. No interoperability standard that was adopted before most of these units were manufactured.
Any smart home platform that requires the device to support a modern protocol is, by definition, a platform that works only for people who already bought new hardware. That is a premium segment serving perhaps 5 million households in a country of 300 million.
The platform that works on the AC already in the room wins. Full stop.
What IR blasters actually give you
An IR blaster paired with a device IR code library gives you universal AC control coverage from day one, with zero dependency on the device manufacturer's software roadmap, API stability, or willingness to participate in any ecosystem.
The stack is straightforward:
- ESP32 with IR transmitter — ₹400–600 in BOM cost
- IR code library — covering 500+ AC models, maintained as open datasets
- Local control loop — commands execute locally, no cloud round-trip
- AI layer on top — occupancy, temperature, usage patterns feed the intelligence layer
The AI layer does not care whether the command was sent over IR, Matter, BLE, or a proprietary API. It cares about outcome: did the room reach target temperature, how long did it take, what was the energy consumed. IR blasters deliver that outcome for the entire installed base, not 2% of it.
The counterargument — and why it does not hold
The standard objection is feedback. Matter-enabled ACs can report their actual state — current temperature, set point, mode, whether the compressor is running. IR blasters send commands blind; you do not know if the AC received the signal or acted on it.
This is a real limitation. It is also solvable with a ₹300 CT clamp current sensor on the circuit breaker. Current draw tells you whether the compressor is running. A temperature sensor tells you whether the room is responding. You have inferred state without requiring any cooperation from the device.
For 98% of the installed base, inferred state via sensing is not a degraded experience — it is the only experience available. And for the 2% with native protocol support, you add that integration on top of the IR layer as an enhancement. The architecture supports both.
The architectural lesson
The broader principle here matters beyond AC control. In emerging markets, universal compatibility is not a nice-to-have — it is the moat. The platform that waits for device manufacturers to participate will always be negotiating from a position of dependency. The platform that works regardless of manufacturer participation negotiates from strength.
Matter is genuinely important for new device categories and new construction. But betting your go-to-market on Matter penetration in India in 2025 is the same as betting on LTE penetration in 2010. The technology is real. The timeline is not your timeline.
Build for the installed base first. Upgrade paths are features you add when you have customers, not prerequisites for having them.