SmartThings, Samsung, & The Home of the Future

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.”

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Join the conversation! 9 Comments

  1. Congrat’s and thank you!

    Reply
  2. The link to the video is broken.

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  3. Video is set to private.

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  4. too bad samsun will buy it then kill it, just like google

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  5. There are potentially exciting things going on in home automation. Microsoft partnered with insteaon, Google and Apple seem to be putting their hats into the ring a bit, and Samsung purchased Smartthings. These things can either be game changers or a hindrance. If Samsung makes Smartthings more proprietary as they have done with their appliance control system, then it would be a travesty. If they use their power and the Smartthings platform to really take home automation where it has been struggling to be for Decades. More products are coming out than ever and the price of them has been coming down. More and more devices are coming with wifi, Bluetooth, z wave, and other connectivity platforms. If one of these companies really breaks out and allows a user to control all of these technologies under one app or platform, it would be a game changer. If
    these big companies use these recent partnerships to remain proprietary, it
    would be a travesty. If they open it wide up to integrate everything, it can be
    AWSOME. I do think that many of these companies will use these platforms to try to enter your home and enter even more deeply into our private lives seeing you as nothing more
    than a consumer and milking every bit of information they can use against you
    and sell about you against you. Lets not forget how big brother invasive
    government has already forced cell phone companies to surrender all of your
    information on you down to tracking your every move. This could end up being a
    very bad thing. Only time will tell, but I think.

    Reply
  6. Looking forward for Smarthings. Hopefully they can support the majority of the protocols and become the main system to use. From what I have seen, this looks to be the best so far.

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