Category: SmartThings Updates

SmartThings and Philips Hue Create First-of-Its-Kind Immersive Music Experiences

September 1, 2022 / / No Comments

In an ongoing quest to enhance our ecosystem of compatible devices, we are pleased to announce an expanded partnership with Philips Hue to transform music listening into an immersive experience.

Through a new integration with Hue Sync into the SmartThings platform, Galaxy users will be able to sync their Philips Hue lights to most music streaming services right from their smartphone or tablet.

With nearly 20% of U.S. consumers owning a smart light, this feature allows users to easily connect their Philips Hue lights via Hue Sync on the SmartThings app – allowing users to seamlessly control, customize, and sync their lights to various music streaming services from their Galaxy mobile device to turn their smart home into the ultimate home entertainment center.

Philips Hue has been a longtime partner of SmartThings, offering full-home control of smart devices when pairing Philips Hue lights with SmartThings. For years, users have been able to connect Philips Hue lights to any Samsung device with the SmartThings app, creating scenes that activate not only light bulbs but also smart blinds or televisions, making the home truly a smart home.

As a leader in smart home technology, we are thrilled to offer SmartThings users the ability to sync their music and lights to create their ideal home experiences – whether for a dinner party, movie night, or workout session. We are excited about this new level of personalization and believe it will set the tone for next-generation connected living.

SmartThings Tests Matter-Compatible Products in Anticipation of New Smart Home Standard

May 18, 2022 / / No Comments

As the anticipation and excitement grows for the Matter standard, we have accelerated our progress, today announcing a Partner Early Access Program with select strategic companies to test their first-ever Matter-compatible products.

We’re thrilled to welcome Aeotec, Aqara, Eve Systems, Leedarson, Nanoleaf, Netatmo, Sengled, Wemo, WiZ and Yale into this exclusive program. As a founding member of Matter, we are excited about this development, as well as the opportunity for partners to test their devices and Matter interoperability with Hub-enabled devices and through the SmartThings app. Additionally, partners can use the SmartThings app for seamless onboarding of their devices. 

As pioneers in the smart home industry from the very beginning, we strongly believe that Matter will become the de facto standard in every smart home in the world. This is why we have, and will continue to, invest heavily in Matter. 

At our annual Samsung Developer Conference, we announced Matter will allow Samsung’s Galaxy devices, TVs, and Family Hub appliances to have the most versatile connectivity options through SmartThings. Integrating SmartThings hub functionality into these devices will make it easier for users to experience the benefits of connected living without the need for a separate smart home hub.

While the launch of Matter later this year remains a significant milestone for SmartThings and the Connectivity Standards Alliance, the Partner Early Access Program has created tremendous near-term excitement for SmartThings and select companies. It reflects the increasing demand for more interoperable, flexible, and private, smart home solutions that have the power to make mass smart home adoption a not so far reality.

Introducing the New SmartThings Experience

June 8, 2021 / / No Comments

We are pleased to unveil the next generation of our SmartThings connected home experience. Featuring a new look and feel, the new SmartThings interface offers users a simpler, more robust user journey, and faster load times. 

Smart homes continue to surge in popularity, with the number of smart homes expected surpass the 350 million mark by 2023. The new SmartThings interface delivers on the needs of both future and existing customers by creating a more seamless application experience. With an enhanced user journey, SmartThings makes life easier to discover and experience IoT services, while ensuring a seamless transition from SmartThings’ previous version.  

The updated app, which will be available on desktop and mobile devices, is the latest example of our ongoing commitment to bringing smart functionality and capabilities to consumers. The revamped layout will include five different sections: Favorites, Devices, Automations, Life, and More:

  • Favorites is the new home screen within SmartThings and gathers the devices, scenes, and services used most for quicker access. 
  • Devices lets users view and control all devices, connecting TVs, light bulbs, appliances, and more. 
  • Life is a place to explore the growing world of connected living where users can discover new SmartThings services that transform physical products into meaningful user experiences. 
  • Automations connects devices and allows them to work together and respond to specific conditions in the home, such as a door opening and a light turning on.  
  • Menu will house additional SmartThings features including SmartThings Labs, Notifications, History, and Settings.    

This update comes on the heels of recent news about SmartThings’ new Windows application, which offers a similar user experience right from a Galaxy Notebook and any other Windows PC. 

Feel Safe at Home in the New Year with Arlo

January 8, 2021 / / No Comments

In our ongoing quest to enhance our ecosystem of compatible devices, we are pleased to announce a new version of the Works With SmartThings integration, built in partnership with Arlo. The integration rounds out our portfolio of home security products by letting you connect to any Arlo device1, including their latest security products.

Beyond adding support for more Arlo devices, this new integration enhances the overall user experience with improved stability and reduced latency so you can get faster access to your camera recordings or video doorbell feed. Users will still be able to enjoy the same features they most commonly use, such as turning all Arlo cameras on/off when arming/disarming the SmartThings Home Monitor, or using the Arlo camera sound sensor to trigger a siren or get lights to turn on, and more.

The process is simple to integrate Arlo with SmartThings, and users will be able to leverage powerful Automations and Scenes to create rich personalized connected home experiences. For example, keeping an eye on the nursery from your Samsung TV with an Arlo Baby camera, or connecting your Arlo video doorbell to answer the door from your Samsung Family Hub fridge.

During this new normal where we spend a lot more time at home, we are committed to bringing smart functionality and capabilities everywhere you want it to be, and partnerships like Arlo help us meet your needs of personalizing your home — whether it’s giving you peace of mind that your home is protected inside and out, or bringing you the convenience of knowing exactly when your packages arrive.

1 Arlo Go and Audio Doorbell are not supported by the integration.

Product Changes for 2017

January 13, 2017 / / 88 Comments

At SmartThings we’ve always prided ourselves on being open and honest with our community–and sometimes that hurts. To be as transparent as possible, we’d rather tell you the good (and the bad) when we can. With that said, we have several unpleasant announcements:

Migration Tool
In 2014, we announced the SmartThings v2 Hub as the next generation Hub to replace our initial Kickstarter product. At that time, we were hard at work on a “migration tool” to help users who wanted to transition from the original Hub to the newer model. Unfortunately, after several false starts, we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not feasible to reliably transfer settings and devices from the first version Hub to the newer model. With that, we are no longer planning to deliver a Hub v1 to Hub v2 migration tool.

We regret that we can’t deliver on our initial promise, but in order to release a migration tool we needed it to deliver a great experience. We found it would be extremely difficult to automatically exclude and shift devices to the new Hub, and we’re unable to meet the expectations we set. Our goal is to always deliver the best mix of features and customer experience, and we regret that we’re letting some of our most loyal customers down.

Windows Phone App
We also regret to announce that version 1.7.0 of the SmartThings app for Windows Phone will be the last major release for the Windows Phone OS. We are no longer able to provide the desired level of updates and support for this platform and have made the tough decision to discontinue Windows phone development.

Version 1.7.0 now offers support for Windows 10 features. Barring unforeseen issues, this version will continue to function (with Windows Phone 10 Anniversary update). On April 1, 2017 version 1.7.0 will be removed from the Windows app store, and it will no longer be possible to download it and install it onto a new device. We will continue to offer technical support through June 2017 for existing users.

SmartApp Curation
Finally, over the next few months, we will be removing SmartApps from the Marketplace that are no longer updated or supported by their developers. We will notify, where possible, the SmartApp developer beforehand, and help existing SmartApp users find alternatives.

SmartThings did not make any of these decisions lightly, and we understand that we are disappointing some of our users. However, these changes allow us to continue to focus on other products and services to help the whole of our community.

 

SmartThings on Windows Mobile

March 9, 2016 / / 16 Comments

Updated – January 13, 2017

We had every intention of maintaining the Windows Mobile experience, as described below, at the time of this article’s publication. Unfortunately, since then, we have made the tough decision to discontinue support for the Windows Mobile platform. For more information, please see this article.

We are leaving the following content in place for future reference.

Wondering what’s going on with the SmartThings app on Windows Mobile? We’ve got an update from our development team.

After our announcement earlier this week of version 2.1.0 of the app for iOS and Android, we wanted to assure our Windows Mobile customers that we haven’t forgotten about you. We’re incredibly proud to be one of the very few smart home systems that supports all three major phone platforms, and we wanted to make sure you had some insight into the development process.

While we’re always working to make sure you have a great SmartThings experience on any device you choose, we know that Windows Mobile users are anxiously awaiting an updated version of the app, so here’s what’s in store:

Instead of doing a large app interface overhaul like we did with iOS and Android, we’ll be releasing individual features over time. The size of each app development team is proportional to the number of SmartThings customers on that platform, so our Windows Mobile team is smaller (though no less dedicated!) than our iOS and Android teams. We plan to do these version releases approximately once a month with a primary focus on stability and bug fixes, but which will frequently be accompanied by updates to features, functionality, and design.

What does that mean for you right now? Well, we hope to have Rooms capability in your hands in the coming days. Looking a little bit further down the road, rest assured that we’ll continue rolling out updates and design changes – though these will follow (and be informed by) updates to iOS and Android.

 
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