Jaeyeon Jung, Samsung Vice President and Head of SmartThings Mobile Experience Business, at the 2022 Samsung Developer Conference. Image: Samsung
Matter standard today, energy monitoring tomorrow: it’s a very simple way to describe what Samsung envisions for smart homes in the months – and years – to come.
In mid-October, Samsung was one of the first companies to achieve Matter certification, and has already rolled out software updates for its existing Aeotec and SmartThings hubs as well as the Android app to support Matter. .
Still, according to Mark Tekippe, vice president of product at SmartThings and board member of the Connectivity Standards Alliance, this is just the beginning. ZDNET sat down with Mark Tekippe to discuss Matter, power consumption and the future of SmartThings.
Break down interoperability barriers
The Matter connectivity standard for connected homes, version 1.0 of which was released in October and is slated for official launch this month, is still in its infancy. The standard aims to break down the interoperability barriers that currently exist between different brands, in hopes of becoming the new language that most smart devices will speak.
Matter-certified devices are not yet on the market, as the various automation systems are still in the process of certifying their own platforms. Samsung, however, was an early adopter of Matter support, earning certification just days after launch.
Although the Aeotec V2 and V3 controllers have already received an update from Matter, other SmartThings controllers will have to wait. Matter support is yet to arrive for compatible Samsung TVs, smart monitors, and Family Hub fridges. The big question is when that will happen: “We haven’t communicated a timeline for that yet, but it’s definitely on the way,” Mark Tekippe said.
In particular, for all hubs to be able to support Matter, it is necessary to abandon the cloud-based Groovy IDE and migrate to Edge drivers to favor local communication. “It’s a big change,” says Mark Tekippe. “We need to make this transformation to take it to the next level in terms of scalability and deliver the performance and experiences that customers really want.”
The change is being implemented right now, and consumers won’t be notified when it actually hits their devices. Edge should give customers local control over their smart homes, so they can connect and control their devices even if the internet connection is down.
Energy monitoring
SmartThings’ vision is far-reaching. SmartThings is already revolutionary in showing users their energy consumption data in the mobile app, but it tries to go further. Mark Tekippe explained: “We plan to go beyond that – it’s part of our vision, it’s to give users whole house energy consumption – and we will do that through partnerships. .”
Whole-home energy monitoring would give people a snapshot of their home’s energy use in real time, allowing them to identify devices or circumstances contributing to high electricity consumption: “Not just to show them how much energy they’re using, but to show them what they can do to move the needle in terms of consumption or usage,” said Mark Tekippe.
This function will help people reduce consumption to save money and energy. This will be possible through partnerships with other companies, such as Itron, that will emerge in the future.
“Matter is going to increase the number of devices we can onboard into this service. So in the future, when Matter expands beyond the initial set of devices into other areas, you can imagine things like electric vehicle chargers” that would fit into the energy monitoring you can do with SmartThings, Mark Tekippe shared.
The timing of SmartThings whole-home energy monitoring is not yet clear. According to Mark Tekippe, Samsung will expand SmartThings Energy to different countries outside of the United States by the end of the year, “and that’s an area of continuous development for us. You’re going to see continuous updates [et] more partnerships.”
A “Hub Everywhere” strategy
SmartThings wants you to know that it’s not out to take over your home; it tries to give you more convenience, more information, and most importantly, more control over your home.
A few years ago, Samsung shocked loyal SmartThings consumers by stopping production of its SmartThings hub, which is essential for using the home automation system. In a nutshell, a hub connects all the different smart devices around your home in one place and brings them online, so you can access them from your mobile device.
Instead, Aeotec, a smart home maker, took over production of the SmartThings hub, offering an identical product to the one Samsung had sold, with branding being the only apparent difference.
This change has SmartThings users wondering about the longevity of the system and, more specifically, wondering if Samsung is planning to discontinue it. But Mark Tekippe says that’s not the case, and that SmartThings is central to Samsung’s overall message, bringing it to more devices and devices for a connected experience.
This is evident with Samsung’s recent “Hub Everywhere” approach. “This is where we’re taking SmartThings Hub software and bringing it into mainstream Samsung product categories like TVs, smart monitors, etc,” said Mark Tekippe. These devices act as SmartThings hubs, allowing you to enjoy smart home automation without having to purchase a separate Aeotec hub.
But, what does this mean for Aeotec? A cynic like me might wonder if that’s why Samsung stopped making the controller – to integrate it into their devices and do without a separate hub altogether? And if so, one wonders if the Aeotec hub will not also be abandoned.
Mark Tekippe, however, asserts that this is not the case and that the partnership with Aeotec is still going strong: “We are fully committed to continuing to support Aotec with its products and the software that runs on them for our users”, did he declare. “I think a lot of current users have these hubs and there’s really no reason to change them.”
The Hub Everywhere strategy instead focuses on new users and greater reach, according to Mark Tekippe. Hub Everywhere, “combined with Matter, will make the smart home experience much more accessible to everyday consumers without having to purchase additional hardware.”
In short
SmartThings promises a lot for the future of smart homes, and we’ll have to see if it delivers. So far, it is one of the most popular and easy to navigate smart home systems with an intuitive and user-friendly interface. And because the Aeotec hub supports Zigbee, Z-Wave, Bluetooth, and Wi-FI, it boasts some of the broadest compatibility among smart home brands.
In truth, SmartThings is just getting started, even at 10 years old. Matter has opened up more possibilities for its future, and its Hub Everywhere approach should bring a wider variety of users into the system, reaching those who aren’t looking to get a smart home hub, but can benefit from a hub built into a device they purchased.
Samsung plans “to have a much more global reach than we’ve had historically, and SmartThings is definitely at the center of those different product areas,” said Mark Tekippe. “We’re really excited for the next chapter as we reach more users and bring those experiences to this global customer base.”
Source: ZDNet.com