# Matter, bridge or cloud skill? What smart home owners should know

Source: https://mfm-voice.com/en/guides/matter-bridge-or-cloud-skill

Author: Felix Müller, Master electrician · Published on 10 October 2026 · Updated on 10 October 2026

Matter, a hardware bridge and a cloud skill are three ways to connect a Loxone Miniserver to Alexa. A fourth is to build it yourself. Three questions settle which one suits you: who sets it up, who maintains it, and which route does the data take? If you want to keep everything local, a cloud service such as MFM Voice is not the right fit.

The MFM Voice skill currently only works with an amazon.de account and Alexa set to German.

## What applies to every route

Alexa always understands speech through Amazon. That is true of all four routes. They only differ after that point: how does the recognised command reach your Miniserver?

## Matter

Loxone introduced Matter as an experimental feature with Loxone Config 14.4 Beta in September 2023\. At the time, the manufacturer stated that it would not provide support for it. You also need a Matter-capable controller, for example an Echo device.

The manufacturer's release notes tell you where things stand today. Read them before you decide on this route.

## Hardware bridge

A bridge is a device that sits on your network. Before you buy, go through the three questions with the provider: who sets up the bridge? Who keeps it up to date? Which route do the commands take?

## Building it yourself

With LoxBerry, Node-RED, ioBroker or openHAB you build the connection yourself. It usually runs on a Raspberry Pi.

- **Setup:** you.
- **Maintenance:** you.
- **Cost:** no subscription.

A self-built solution is flexible. It suits you if you are confident you can maintain it in the long run.

## Cloud service with a skill

A cloud service such as MFM Voice needs no device in your home.

- **Setup:** you create an account, connect your Miniserver, select the devices and enable the skill in the Alexa app.
- **Maintenance:** the provider runs the service.
- **Cost:** a subscription.
- **Data route:** your commands run through the provider's servers.

With MFM Voice, the route looks like this: your voice, the Echo device, Amazon for speech recognition, the MFM Voice servers in Nuremberg, your Miniserver. MFM Voice receives the recognised command, never audio recordings. For this, your Miniserver must be reachable from the internet. The simplest way is Loxone's remote access service, Remote Connect. You then do not need port forwarding on your router.

## When MFM Voice is not the right choice

- You want to run everything locally, without another provider's cloud. Then MFM Voice is not for you.
- You do not want a subscription. A self-built solution works without one.
- Your Miniserver has very old firmware without token authentication. It is not supported.
- You want to control the alarm system, audio zones or the intercom by voice. That is not possible with MFM Voice.

## Three questions before you decide

1. **Who sets it up?** You or your installer?
2. **Who maintains it?** Will you look after it yourself, or should a provider do that?
3. **Which route does the data take?** Alexa always understands speech through Amazon. The open question is whether another provider is involved after that.

Answer the three questions honestly for your household. The answers usually point to the right route.

For a side-by-side comparison by criteria, see [Loxone and Alexa compared](https://mfm-voice.com/en/loxone-alexa-comparison).

## Sources

- [Loxone: Experimental Integration of the Matter Standard (26 September 2023, retrieved 10 October 2026)](https://www.loxone.com/int/blog/experimental-integration-of-the-matter-standard/)

## About the author

Felix Müller is a master electrician and the owner of MFM Elektrotechnik e.K. in Wunstorf.

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