SmartThings Archives

Samsung SmartThings Energy can monitor your power consumption

Ewdison Then | Jul 15, 2021

Global conditions seem to be conspiring to make us use up more energy these days. The COVID-19 pandemic forced many people to stay at home, consuming more electricity to while away the days. Unusual and extreme weather conditions are also forcing many to fire up their heating or air conditioning more often than usual. In addition to increasing power consumption and carbon footprint, these scenarios also result increased electricity bills. In light of that, Samsung's new SmartThings Energy service wants to help customers reduce their expenses, and it starts by simply knowing how much energy you're using in the first place.

SmartThings app gets an overhaul to better tame the smart home

Chris Davies | Jun 8, 2021

Samsung has launched its latest generation of SmartThings, with the smart home and connected devices platform promising to make automations easier and actions more stable. The revamped SmartThings gets a new interface, too, following Samsung's release of a version of the app for Windows.

Galaxy Upcycling at Home beta gives your old phone a reason to live

Eric Abent | Apr 21, 2021

Device waste is a pretty major issue, and earlier this year, Samsung announced a new SmartThings feature meant to fight against it. Dubbed Galaxy Upcycling at Home, this feature allows you to repurpose old Galaxy phones as IoT devices through the SmartThings app. Today, the Galaxy Upcycling at Home program is expanding with a beta test that's landing in a few major regions around the world.

Galaxy SmartTag+ with UWB support gets a release date

Eric Abent | Apr 8, 2021

Earlier this year, Samsung revealed an enhanced SmartTag it's simply calling the SmartTag+. Functionality is still mostly the same - you'll still attach these SmartTags to items that prone to to being misplaced so you can find them easily - but as the name suggests, SmartTag+ comes with new functionality over its predecessor. Now, Samsung has told when we can expect SmartTag+ to launch.

NVIDIA SHIELD TV SmartThings Link will become unusable in July

JC Torres | Mar 1, 2021

A smart home hub is only as useful as the number of languages it can speak. Given the number of disparate smart home platforms available today, it pays to either understand all those or at least have the ability to learn to communicate with other smart home products. That was practically what the SmartThings Link USB dongle did for the NVIDIA SHIELD TV but that dongle itself will lose its ability to speak the SmartThings language when Samsung upgrades its ecosystem in June.

SmartThings integration with Nest, Android Auto starts rolling out

Ewdison Then | Jan 18, 2021

At its very early Unpacked 2021 event last week, Samsung didn't just announce a new Galaxy S21 smartphone, Galaxy Buds Pro earbuds, and Galaxy Smart Tag trackers. It also announced a collaboration that made sense but few probably expected would ever happen. Samsung revealed that it was nurturing a closer relationship with Google, even in areas where they have competing products, bridging the gap between Samsung's SmartThings IoT platform and Google's Nest-branded devices and Android Auto car platform.

Galaxy Watch Active 2 update serves up SmartThings Find, new health features

Eric Abent | Jan 15, 2021

The Galaxy Watch Active 2 is getting a big update today, as Samsung is pushing SmartThings Find functionality to the watch. First revealed last year, SmartThings Find uses ultra-wideband and Bluetooth Low Energy to locate lost devices that may not be able to connect to the internet. With SmartThings Find rolling out to the Galaxy Watch Active 2 today, we might see it roll out to the company's other wearables before long too.

Samsung reveals smarter Family Hub fridge and a robo-vac that thinks it’s a guard dog

Chris Davies | Jan 11, 2021

Samsung's big Galaxy S21 launch may be coming later this week, but it's home appliances which are getting their moment in the spotlight today. Fresh for CES 2021 are updates in the kitchen, the laundry room, and roving the floors in the shape of a new, smarter robotic vacuum cleaner.

Samsung SmartThings will soon let you control Nest devices

Eric Abent | Dec 8, 2020

For those looking to get a smart home set up rolling, there are a number of ecosystems to choose from - Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings, Nest, the list goes on. Generally speaking, these ecosystems don't feature a ton of interoperability with one another, but that might be starting to change. Today, Samsung and Google announced that they're teaming up to allow compatibility between SmartThings, Nest, and Google Assistant devices.

Samsung SmartThings is getting offline Rules support

Chris Davies | Oct 29, 2019

Samsung is hoping to give SmartThings, its connected home platform, a boost, adding new rules support and coaxing device-makers into adding compatibility. Announced at the Samsung Developer Conference 2019 today, the company's annual developer event, SmartThings' new Rules API promises to better link together multiple devices acting on a single command or trigger.

Samsung adds affordable SmartThings camera, bulbs and smart plug

Chris Davies | Jun 24, 2019

Samsung's SmartThings has added a new connected camera, LED bulb, and WiFi smart plug to its line-up, and unusually most don't need to be connected to the SmartThings hub in order to work. The smart home platform was revamped back in 2018, with an updated and more powerful hub, along with a new set of sensors.

SmartThings Tracker packs LTE-M, GPS for tracking people, pets and more

Brittany A. Roston | Sep 10, 2018

Samsung has introduced SmartThings Tracker, a new tracking device that features LTE-M and GPS for tracking items like bags and keys. The system supports real-time tracking using an app available for Android and iOS. Even better, the tracking device can double as an arrival sensor to trigger certain Internet of Things devices, such as a connected porch light that turns on when you get home.