The SmartThings Blog

We’ve just released an updated version of the SmartThings Android app, and it’s now available for free download in the Google Play store. Here's a quick rundown of what's new and improved: (more…)

Note: We are in talks with Logitech Harmony to improve this integration and should be releasing changes that greatly enhance its performance and reliability soon. Please stay tuned, and thank you for your patience. – The SmartThings Product team We’re very excited to announce the newest addition to SmartThings Labs: Logitech Harmony. By combining the power of Harmony and the SmartThings open platform, you can now seamlessly integrate your smart home with your home entertainment system to control and automate 270,000 devices from more than 6,000 brands. Smart Home Entertainment This SmartThings Labs integration allows you to control the Harmony activities of your favorite home entertainment devices directly from your SmartThings app. By connecting SmartThings and Harmony, you can initiate Harmony activities via SmartThings triggers. For example: • Turn on Cable TV When I Return Home • Turn off the Stereo When I Leave • Turn on My PlayStation or Xbox When I Change to Game Mode • ...and much more These on/off Harmony actions can be initiated with the following SmartThings triggers: • mode change • contact sensor opens/closes • acceleration detected • motion starts/stops • switch turned on/off • person, pet, or car arrives/departs • button press • scheduled time You can also control SmartThings-powered lights and switches directly from the new Harmony Home Control remote. Here are just a few of the thousands of things that are now possible: • Turn on the local news or the Weather Channel on your TV each morning as you wake up • Trigger your TV to turn on automatically when you come home from work each day, and to turn off when you leave the house • Set your Sonos to automatically play a certain station or playlist when you open a door • If you've already set up a SmartThings Movie Time mode (or something similar), you can now also trigger a "Play DVD" activity so that the movie starts playing at the same time as the lights dim. • Invite David Blaine over to your home. Tell him that because of a magical gift that you've been born with, you have the power to turn on your TV, play a movie, or blast the stereo just by moving this here frame on the wall. Move that frame, and blast that stereo. Impress David Blaine. Go on tour with David Blaine. Become best friends with David Blaine. Setup: To integrate SmartThings with Harmony, you'll need one of three new products that Harmony recently unveiled: the Harmony Home Hub, the Harmony Home Control, or the Harmony Ultimate Home. An important note: To access the SmartThings integration, existing Harmony customers will need to upgrade their firmware. Logitech tells us that upgrade will be available in the coming months and that there will be a small fee associated with it. If you have further questions about this forthcoming firmware update, please contact Logitech.   For new Harmony customers, we've put together a series of videos guiding you through the setup process. First, you'll want to use the Logitech Harmony app to set up your Harmony Hub with SmartThings, like this: After you've set this up, you can follow this video to begin controlling your SmartThings-powered lights and switches using the Harmony app: Next, you'll want to use the SmartThings app to set up and trigger different Harmony Activities: And now you're all set to begin using SmartThings Labs to integrate your smart home with your home entertainment setup. Ahem... world's first smart wall-mounted TV, anyone?  What is SmartThings Labs? SmartThings Labs gives customers access to a curated group of popular third-party devices and services that can work together with SmartThings while they’re still in development. These new product solutions are created by our in-house team, as well as by our growing community of software developers. Together, they make it easier than ever to control all of the connected devices in your home with the SmartThings iOS and Android apps. As our engineering team works to fine-tune these integrated products and solutions with our platform, they may move from SmartThings Labs into more prominent sections of the SmartThings Dashboard to make way for new integrations and features in Labs. Since Labs is all about experimenting, you may notice that some product features aren’t fully polished yet. If you do experience any performance issues, we’d love to hear your feedback to help improve things–just shoot us a note at support@smartthings.com. SmartThings Labs is open for all SmartThings customers. To access it, tap the "+" icon at the bottom of the SmartThings Dashboard to go to SmartSetup. Then, scroll to the right to find the "More" category, where SmartThings Labs is located.

SmartThings CEO Alex Hawkinson stopped by the Politico offices yesterday to discuss connected homes, the Internet of Things, and the regulation of the industry. (more…)

In an essay published on Medium, SmartThings CEO Alex Hawkinson describes what happens when we breathe life into inanimate objects, and the lifeless things around us finally wake up.

Today, we meet Dani and her husband, Josh–he's a software test engineer, she's a social media specialist who also runs a blog and an Etsy shop. When they aren't nerding out over the latest technology, they're probably playing with their wire-haired Jack Russell Terrier or training him to pick up their laundry. (more…)

We continue to be amazed at the many creative and valuable ways that people are using SmartThings to complement their unique preferences and lifestyles. In the post below, a member of the SmartThings Community named "florianz" describes how he's transformed a normal Android tablet into a sleek wall-mounted device to control his smart home. Check it out! (more…)

Welcome to our latest installment of “Hello, Smart Home,” a video series where we head inside customers’ houses and apartments to see how they’re using SmartThings to secure their homes, gain peace of mind, and complement their preferences and patterns. (more…)

We’ve just released a new version of the SmartThings iOS app that’s available for free download in the iTunes store! In addition, we also recently released a new feature that's designed to improve the temperature readings for SmartSense Multi sensors. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s what: • iOS version 1.6.5 includes several minor UI enhancements and updates to improve the general stability and overall performance of the app • In addition, we've also updated and improved icon pickers to help people customize and identify their different connected devices We’ve also just released a new feature for both Android and iOS to help improve the quality of the readings on your SmartThings devices that record temperature (the new SmartSense Moisture, SmartSense Open/Closed, and SmartSense Motion sensors; and the SmartSense Multi sensor). Since some customers have reported that their sensors often record temperatures that are consistently a few degrees off from other thermometers, we’ve enabled a Temperature Calibration feature that allows you to select a consistent offset. As an example, if your Multi consistently reports a temperature that is 4 degrees warmer than nearby thermometers, you’d enter in “-4″ in this field. If it’s 3 degrees colder, you’d enter “3.” This way, your Multi will always report the correct temperature. 

SmartThings CEO Alex Hawkinson and Samsung Electronics' President and CEO, BK Yoon, outlined an ambitious vision of the future of smart homes at today's IFA 2014 event. Yoon expressed that someone's home is generally the center of their life, and as such, homes should be personalized to meet each individual's needs. He emphasized that a one-size-fits-all solution to delivering smart home technology would never work, and the home of the future should be one that's proactive, flexible, and responsive. After calling on the consumer electronics industry to agree on open industry standards so that the home of the future can meet the demands of people and adapt to their unique needs and lifestyles, Yoon invited Hawkinson on stage. (Hawkinson appears at 37:40) Hawkinson discussed how a busted water pipe caused more than $80,000 to his family's home inspired he and a small group of founders to create SmartThings a little more than two years ago. “It’s staggering that I knew what my friends were doing on Facebook but I didn't know what was even happening in my own home," he said. Hawkinson discussed how SmartThings' core vision has always been to be the easiest way for people to turn their home into a smart home, and that he believes that together with Samsung, SmartThings will be able to turn every home into a smart home. “We are thrilled to work together with Samsung,” he said. “With the scale of resources and support from Samsung, we’ll be able to expand our platform to even more partners and devices. We’ve come so far, in such a short time, and are really excited for what’s ahead.”

We’ve just released an updated version of the SmartThings Android app, and it’s now available for free download in the Google Play store. In addition to several minor UI enhancements and updates to improve stability and overall performance, we’ve also included a few new features. (more…)