Celebrating 10 Years of SmartThings

This month marks the 10^th anniversary of SmartThings as a company. Through our journey, we have laid the foundation for the next generation of the smart home, and we have made significant shifts all for the benefit of our users. 

Since the early days, our goal of making a platform that every human being can use – and making every home a smart home – has remained the same. We’re driven by the idea of accelerating IoT adoption for everyone and helping consumers across the world realize the benefits of a seamless and simple connected life. 

Looking Back the Progress We’ve Made 

Years ago, the idea of a smart home was more of a novelty than a reality. In 2011, Alex Hawkinson developed the idea for SmartThings after his family’s house in Colorado was extensively damaged from a power outage, causing tens of thousands in repairs. While the idea of a “smart home” was depicted in movies and TV shows, there was no real solution that could give consumers an accurate depiction of what was going on inside their home. 

This was the basis of the company’s Kickstarter in 2012. The campaign received over $1.2 million from 5,700 backers, due to a simple idea: adding intelligence to everyday things would make life more awesome. The company was committed to changing the mindset about smart home technology, demonstrating that data about how people live and what they do have the power to solve everyday problems. 

This caught on, and others began taking notice. In 2013, Wired highlighted SmartThings as a key leader in the emerging smart home automation space, and we launched our first line of commercial products at CES in 2014. 

The opportunity to bring SmartThings’ vision to hundreds of millions of customers truly came to life when Samsung acquired SmartThings in August 2014 to accelerate its connected appliance strategy. With the backing of Samsung, making every home a smart home was no longer a pipe dream – it was only a matter of time. 

Moving Toward Mass Smart Home Adoption 

Driven by the goal of achieving mass smart home adoption through a unified and intelligent home experience, we innovated from a single line of commercial products into one of the largest integrated ecosystems. 

Today, SmartThings works with hundreds of compatible devices, including lights, cameras, voice assistants, locks, thermostats and more, through partnerships with leading brands like Amazon, Honeywell, Arlo, and Google Home Assistant. The company has also brought the groundbreaking smart home interoperability standard, Matter, into the SmartThings ecosystem. 

In just ten years, we have risen to become the most robust smart home IoT platform in the market. We are proud that SmartThings now has:    

• 200+ global partners and the ability to integrate with thousands of devices 
• 800+ talented employees across Samsung who are dedicated to SmartThings
• 15 categories of supported devices, from voice assistants to window treatment and more
• 9 add-on services in the SmartThings’ app today, including Air Care, Clothing Care, Cooking, Energy, Home Care, Pet Care, Smart Lock Guest Access, Find, and Home Monitor 
• 4.5 stars rating in the Google Play Store and a 4.3 rating in the iOS App Store 

Looking back on all that we have accomplished, we’re grateful to our wonderful partners and developers. Good things happen when devices talk to one another, and without our strong partnerships, creating meaningful connecting living experiences would not be possible.

As we continue the path toward mass smart home adoption, we’re focused on creating experiences with consumers at the center. While solutions like SmartThings enable a more connected living experience, consumers are at the heart of our business – the ones who bring smart homes to life by supporting all their big life moments. We’re excited about the future and the opportunity to make smart home living the norm for consumers in the next ten years and beyond.