Samsung has announced the release of the latest iteration of SmartThings, Samsung’s Internet of Things (IoT) home environment, with the enhanced suite of offerings already updated on both mobile and desktop (Windows) platforms. The new user interface was built for the seamlessness of a connected home experience at the forefront. Not only does it come with a new visual layout, but it also features faster load times and a more in-depth user experience.
“We’ve listened to our customers and have invested in our technology to enhance the user experience to make it simpler. As smart homes continue to surge in popularity, SmartThings is the ideal platform that allows everyone to enjoy a smarter life with connected devices,” said Jaeyeon Jung, corporate VP at Samsung. The company’s breadth of offerings across the home electronics ecosystem is robust, and they enable users to control their electronics easily, efficiently and with a high degree of customizability.
The new SmartThings interface hopes to expand the connected home experience of users. This latest iteration feels like an evolution of what they were already familiar with. In reconfiguring things, the new design for the SmartThings app is broken down into five sections: Favorites, Menu, Life, Devices and Automation.
Favorites
The Favorites portion of the app acts as the new home screen for SmartThings. It collects the devices, services and scenes that are most frequently accessed by the user for quicker, more convenient access. By putting the user’s most commonly accessed features as the first screen they will access, the app’s new layout will feel more natural and as though it’s an extension of the user’s intentions, thus improving their experience and connecting them with all of their SmartThings integrated devices. With some light machine learning, the Favorites screen will recognize the cyclical patterns that a user engages in and offer home screen suggestions—even before the user anticipates them. Users will be able to quickly monitor their home environment, directly turn on their devices, adjust peripheral device configurations, or turn on one of their preset scenes to set the mood for their living space.
Life
The Life module within the SmartThings app is an exploration environment where users get firsthand access to new SmartThings services that will enable them to go beyond the physical products and delve into meaningful user experiences with added value. Within the Life portion of the app, users can learn about enhanced functions and additional features of the SmartThings ecosystem, which go beyond the product experience and explore living experiences. One example of such offerings is the SmartThings Cooking add-on service, which aims to seamlessly connect shopping lists, recipes and food prep into one cohesive plan.
SmartThings Cooking is a port of one of the most popular features of Samsung’s Family Hub software that operates on its range of smart fridges. Along with various app integrations with partner service companies, such as Instacart or hub. Samsung’s smart fridges have become known for their innovative suite of meal prep, shopping list and smart recipes features. By integrating these cooking features into the larger SmartThings ecosystem, Samsung is able to create an even more connected smart home experience. It’s something like a scene out of the Jetsons: the app takes into account users’ dietary preferences and builds meals plans to match them, and then automatically orders any recipe ingredients that are not already in the home. Finally, a user is guided through the cooking and prep process while SmartThings automatically preheats the oven.
Menu
The Menu portion of the app houses other miscellaneous features such as notifications, settings and history, as well as the SmartThings Lab—a playground within the app where users can participate in advanced feature testing before those features are officially released to a wider audience.
The access to advanced features provides engineers and developers with access to free user experience testing while they also get direct real-time feedback from their actual users, enabling them to work out any kinks before the feature’s wider release. Upon its launch, the SmartThings Lab was released with a universal remote control that allowed users to control multiple devices with the use of a single screen, where they toggled through their different devices via scrolling.
The developers were also testing virtual switches, which allowed users to create switches that can be used in mood scenes or automation scenarios without the need to purchase physical devices. Other features that have been added are a quick TV control widget within the app’s notification panel, which also allows lock screen control of the TV even when a phone is locked. This is further bolstered by the addition of a functionality that allows user devices to function as Bluetooth keyboards for their televisions, thus making time-consuming slow searches on smart TVs a thing of the past. The U.S. version of the app at launch provides access to eight experimental features, while the Korean app has seven. Samsung plans to expand these offerings, one of which will be the addition of old Samsung Galaxy devices that users will able to upcycle into cameras and monitors.
Devices
The Devices portion of the app allows users to view and control all devices within their home SmartThings environments. Here, users will have access to their home TVs, light bulbs, sensors, appliances and various other connected devices. The SmartThings platform continues to expand its offerings. With the recently announced integration of the Matter protocol into the SmartThings ecosystem, Samsung has been able to create a platform with many flexible ways to connect IoT devices—whether it be over Wi-Fi, Z-Wave, Zigbee, or now Matter. The SmartThings open platform allows a fully integrated ecosystem where developers, services and devices come together with access to hundreds of certified brands, along with millions of active users, to drive innovation in connected living experiences. Aside from common smart home devices, like AV peripherals and home appliances, users can access a variety of motion and door sensors, door locks, monitoring devices and even generic Z-Wave devices all in one place.
Automation
Automations are where the rubber meets the road for the connected home experience. Here, users can create smart workflow where multiple devices act together as a system to respond to specific conditions within the home, such as a door opening, light/music being turned on, or user input.
The new interfaces are now available on both the Android and iOS mobile platforms, as well as the recently announced Windows application, which users can access directly from their PCs.