SmartThings Blog

We’re excited to announce that the next generation of the Samsung SmartThings Hub, a new lineup of products, and a brand-new SmartThings app experience is available today.

Our mission has always been to create the easiest way for people to turn their home into a smart home. In fact, we started SmartThings out of a desire to know the answer to a basic but deeply personal question: is everything OK in my home. We believe our latest product evolution delivers on this ambition.

Here’s a look at what’s new and improved:

The New Samsung SmartThings Hub and Sensors

The new Hub enables video streaming, has battery backup that lasts up to 10 hours, and can run certain functions locally to improve performance and continue to operate without an internet connection.

The Hub will continue to support ZigBee, Z-Wave, and local internet connected devices. Two USB ports and embedded Bluetooth will support future expansion.

The new collection of Samsung SmartThings sensors are now smaller and have been redesigned with a sleeker, more contemporary look to fit seamlessly into the background of your home.

The New SmartThings App Experience

The free SmartThings app has been redesigned for easier navigation and a more intuitive experience. You can now directly organize and control your connected devices by room, view live streaming from cameras, quickly set up and run routines, explore the marketplace of nearly 200 devices now compatible with SmartThings, and so much more.

One of the exciting new features of the SmartThings app experience is Smart Home Monitor– an integrated home monitoring solution. Smart Home Monitor allows you to receive alerts and take action when SmartThings detects unwanted entry or motion, smoke or fire, leaks, or other important activity. Existing customers will be able to configure Smart Home Monitor from their dashboard within 24 hours after downloading the updated app.

With Smart Home Monitor, our Hub version 2, and a connected camera, you can also get instant alerts with an accompanying video-clip when these unexpected events occur. Video buffering in the new hub means clips can start prior to the event so you can see exactly what is happening in your home. Video clips will eventually be a premium feature within Smart Home Monitor but are available in beta as a free trial through 2015. After the free trial, a premium version of Smart Home Monitor, which includes video clips, will be available for $4.99 per month. Live streaming will always be free.

The new SmartThings app will be available for free download on iOS and Android starting today, with Apple Watch, and Gear S apps to follow. Be sure to check out our post for a more in-depth look at the app’s new features.

We would like to extend our heart-felt thanks to our customers, supporters, and developer community. Your commitment, feedback, and ideas are what make our open platform truly special. We hope you you enjoy the new SmartThings experience.

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SmartThings, Samsung, and the Open Platform

Friends, Today is a big day for SmartThings. I’m excited to announce that SmartThings has been acquired by Samsung and will operate as an independent company within Samsung’s Open Innovation Center group. It has always been our goal to create a totally open smart home platform that brings together third-party developers, device makers, and consumers. We’re thrilled that Samsung fully supports this vision. We will continue to run SmartThings the way we always have: by embracing our community of customers, developers, and device makers and championing the creation of the leading open platform for the smart home. Our growing team will remain fully intact and will relocate to a new headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. In short: SmartThings will remain SmartThings. (more…)

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Earlier this year we announced that we’ll soon unveil the next generation of the SmartThings Hub and several sensors. We wanted to provide a quick update on our progress to date. (more…)

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January 13, 2017

Product Changes for 2017

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.