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In our final Vergecast Spec-tacular of the year, Dieter Bohn dives into Matter, the new tech standard that smart home gadgets will use to communicate with each other, making compatibility between gadgets significantly easier. Guests include: Verge smart home reviewer Jennifer Pattison Tuohy Michelle Mindala-Freeman, Head of Marketing for the Connectivity Standards Alliance. Tim Both, brand manager and product manager for Eve Samantha Fein, VP of Marketing and Business Development at Samsung SmartThings Further reading: Matter's plan to save the smart home What matters about Matter, the new smart home standard Matter could bring universal casting that actual works Smart home company Eve plans to use Matter to move beyond Apple’s HomeKit Amazon confirms its support for Matter Google shares its commitment to Matter, promises future interoperability between smart home platforms  Samsung promises Matter support for SmartThings hubs, Galaxy devices, TVs, and fridges Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon announced a few more Echo devices this week, and The Vergecast is here to recap it all. Nilay, Dan, Dieter, and Paul discuss Amazon’s strategy with these new products, as well rumors of stuff that will be announced at Google’s event next week. There’s a whole lot of stuff in between that — like Twitter’s new 280 character limit — so listen to it all and you’ll get it all. 02:22 - Twitter just doubled the character limit for tweets to 280 06:08 - The 5 biggest announcements from Amazon’s surprise hardware event 09:23 - Amazon’s Echo and Echo Plus are hiding a lot of new tech 16:41 - Amazon's Echo Spot is a sneaky way to get a camera into your bedroom 24:31 - Google pulls YouTube off the Amazon Echo Show 41:16 - This week in TV stuff 46:52 - Amazon announces new Fire TV with 4K and HDR for only $70 52:33 - Paul’s weekly segment “Kitsch in the Kloud” 54:14 - Google Pixel 2 event: what to expect Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices