Recent Articles

October 5, 2023

Developers Are Building the Next Era of Smart Homes and Buildings with new SmartThings APIs

At SDC2023, SmartThings announced three new APIs, empowering developers of all kinds to leverage SmartThings’ robust infrastructure as a platform for their innovative solutions. The SmartThings APIs serve as the foundation for building solutions that interact with SmartThings infrastructure effortlessly. Whether building an app, device, or platform, SmartThings APIs streamline the process, making building connected solutions more efficient and accessible. The new SmartThings APIs announced are: The SmartThings Home API  — With the Home API, developers’ apps can directly interface with devices connected to SmartThings hubs, letting you create applications that offer seamless device management whether users are local or remote.The Home API eliminates the demands of building and maintaining your own cloud or Matter Controller by using SmartThings’ hub and cloud infrastructure as your own. And you don’t have to make tradeoffs between efficiency and innovation. The Home API allows you to pass custom features to your app using "Manufacturer Specific Clusters". The SmartThings Context API — This powerful tool unlocks the benefit of SmartThings’ new Intelligence Platform, and an exciting new level of automations for users. Harnessing AI, sensing, and connected devices to infer context-like presence and frequent activities allows SmartThings to recommend new and helpful experiences that increase engagement with your devices.The Context API allows developers to receive inference results in real time, and use them to help their devices respond more intelligently. Intelligence Platform features and developer access is always subject to user consent, and developer terms and conditions. The SmartThings Enterprise API — The Enterprise API enables developers building solutions for multi-family, rental, and hospitality environments, to leverage SmartThings’ infrastructure and ecosystem, including Samsung appliances, to cost-effectively build and deploy scalable solutions. Enhancing SmartThings Build, the Enterprise API offers full programmatic access so you can build your own platform and app, without requiring individual SmartThings accounts. And your platform can be more flexible than ever, with role-based policies defining access from the device level up, allowing you to adapt to the needs of different customers. Location groups and large-scale access tokens further enhance scalability of your solutions and the businesses you support. The new SmartThings APIs represent a significant step forward in the smart home ecosystem. Developers of consumer smart home devices and apps, as well as smart building and MDU solutions providers, now have access to a robust infrastructure that simplifies development, enhances user and property manager experiences, and saves valuable resources. Whether looking to control devices locally or remotely, leverage AI to make your devices behave more intelligently, SmartThings enables you to build smarter, scalable products, while letting you invest more in doing what you do best — developing innovative solutions for smart homes. Developers interested in gaining early access to these new SmartThings APIs can contact partners@smartthings.com
April 13, 2016

SmartThings at the Samsung Developer Conference

Join us at #SmartThingsSDC: Everything you need to know about SmartThings at the Samsung Developer Conference — including a $100 discount on registration! (more…)
May 7, 2015

A Playful View of the Internet of Things

In what has to be one of the most creative explanations of the Internet of Things to date, Alpha-ville Studio has created this interactive project showcasing how the IoT will affect how we live, work, and interact with the environment around us. Check it out...
April 6, 2015

The Past, Present, and Future of the Internet of Things

From smart switches to smart personal assistants, the software company Aria takes a look back at the first connected homes, and imagines how they might change in ten years. (more…)
January 30, 2015

Calling All Developers

At SmartThings, we're busy building a totally open platform that brings together consumers, device makers, and developers–and we'd like you to build it with us. (more…)
November 7, 2014

The Value of the Internet of Things

After delivering a speech at this year's Web Summit in Dublin, SmartThings CTO, Jeff Hagins, shows CNN how he's integrated more than 100 connected devices with his SmartThings Hub, and explains why he hates the term "Internet of Things."
November 7, 2014

Samsung Developer Conference 2014

Whether you're a developer, a total tech novice, or someone who's just curious about what this whole "connected living" concept is all about, you're going to want to be sure to check out this year's Samsung Developer Conference from November 11 to 13 in downtown San Francisco. Not only will this year's SDC feature more than 200 speakers and 108 workshops on everything ranging from wearables to the IoT to gaming and virtual reality, but it will also showcase a fully built glass-enclosed smart home that's powered by SmartThings. You can learn more about this year's SDC and register here. After registering, be sure to download the free Samsung Developer Conference app for iOS, which is chock-full of great info, including these highlights, featuring some speakers you may recognize: SmartThings Workshop: Extending the SmartThings Platform Led by SmartThings founder and VP of engineering, Scott Vlaminck; and senior software engineer, Matt Nohr Tuesday, November 11 (9 a.m. - 12 p.m.; 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.) Dig deeper into the SmartThings open platform by learning how to create new ways to use SmartThings ("SmartApps"). Introduction to the SmartThings Platform Led by SmartThings CTO, Jeff Hagins Thursday, November 13 (9 a.m. - 10 a.m.) Learn all about how SmartThings is propelling the Internet of Things by fostering a community of developers to build an open platform for the smart home, and beyond. Creating and Adding New Devices onto the SmartThings Platform A session led by SmartThings founder and VP of engineering, Scott Vlaminck Thursday, November 13 (1 p.m. - 2 p.m.) Learn how to add new device types to the SmartThings Platform, and what kinds of devices can be integrated with SmartThings. Smart Home of the Future: Dreaming of Tomorrow A panel featuring SmartThings' founder and SVP of product, James Stolp Thursday, November 13, 3 pm - 4 pm There is a lot of buzz about the Smart Home, but where is it going? Where will this technology lead us? Come and listen to a panel of speakers discuss where we will be in the not-too-distant future, where the smart home will begin to interact naturally with us. Introduction to SmartApps Led by SmartThings senior software engineer, Matt Nohr Thursday, November 13, 10 am - 11 am This session will be a look at what it takes to write code that runs inside SmartThings and what is possible and accessible for every SmartThings customer and partner. You will learn: What are SmartApps, how do we use them in the SmartThings platform and what can they do; Getting started creating SmartApps; example SmartApp code. And last but certainly not least, don't leave without checking out the SmartThings-powered Samsung Smart Home. Come by for a 15-minute demo to see how SmartThings and Samsung are propelling the smart home forward. Guided demos will be offered on a first come, first served basis. You can schedule your tour in the SDC app for one of these timeframes: • Tuesday, November 11 from noon - 4:30 p.m. (every 30 minutes) • Wednesday, November 12 from 11 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. (every 30 minutes) • Thursday, November 13 from 9 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. (every 30 minutes)  
May 8, 2014

A Future with the Internet of Things

SmartThings co-founder and CTO Jeff Hagins describes how the Internet of Things will add immense value to people's lives and change how we interact with the physical world around us. (more…)
March 20, 2014

SmartThings Starts Shipping to European Kickstarter Backers

Hello! Hola! Ciao! Bonjour! Hallo! We're pleased to announce that we will begin shipping SmartThings to our European backers this week. If you're a European-based Kickstarter backer, we have just sent you an e-mail asking you to either select your SmartThings devices (if you haven't done so already), or to confirm your mailing address (if you've already selected your SmartThings devices). We ask that you please complete and submit this e-mail so we can send you your order. (more…)
March 7, 2014

Introducing the Physical Graph

In December 2012, co-founders Jeff Hagins, Scott Vlaminck, and Jesse O'Neill-Oine presented SmartThings' vision for a fully connected home at the Le Web international conference in Paris. While the look of the SmartThings app and platform have undergone a series of significant changes and improvements in the past 15 months, the vision of what they describe remains at the core of our company's DNA: If we can create a digital representation of the physical things around us and get these connected things to send useful information to us and to each other, then we will be able to know what is happening anywhere else in the world and take action on it–like controlling lights in Minneapolis from France. At SmartThings, we call this digital manifestation and representation of all things the "Physical Graph™," and are convinced it's going to change the world.