smartthings lcd panel manufacturer

Now that I have done the hub on my boat, I’m going to do the one for my house, and then I’ll be getting a couple of androids, or similar small displays to make real alarm and control panels.

I stumbled across a young startup: SmartThings. A home automation platform built for developers from the ground up. They have a cloud-based development environment that allows you to create smart apps and custom device types to talk to, and ... wait for it ... yes, microcontroller-based devices over ZigBee!! They even have an Arduino shield you can use to hack together a prototype.

It was the perfect storm. I had an open platform (SmartThings), an open protocol to talk to it (ZigBee), and years’ worth of awesome Propeller-based devices that could take advantage of it. So, last April, I created a standards-based ZigBee object for the Parallax Propeller that allows my devices to communicate based on the ZigBee HA public profile. It opened a huge door of opportunity for my devices. Now, I can make a device, connect it to the SmartThings hub over ZigBee, and control it with my iPhone. All this and I don’t have to write one line of code that runs on the iPhone!! My device identifies itself to the SmartThings hub, tells it what it is capable of, and the SmartThings hub then determines how to control it.

One of my ZigBee HA projects — the CoopBoss (Chicken Coop Door controller) — won Best in Show at SmartThings. They did a nice write-up on the CoopBoss; if you’re interested, you can check it out at

J - ZigBee Radio: The ZigBee radio is from Digi International; the part number is XBP24CZ7UIS-004. This radio securely communicates with the SmartThings hub that connects to the SmartThings cloud on the Internet. A smartphone app (SmartThings Custom Device Type) allows secure control of the CoopBoss over the Internet.

This project and several others like it have been very rewarding. I would like to share my experiences with focus on the ZigBee communications. The real story here is not the circuit, but how you can take a simple circuit and make it into a full blown solution by connecting it to the IoT. To accomplish this, I have laid out a simple “hello world” test circuit in “The Controlling a Custom Device with SmartThings” section of this article. It’s an LED tied to a Propeller and a ZigBee radio. We will gradually add complexity to the circuit as we go deeper into the protocol.

Why is this important to a device maker? Let’s say you want to make a device that has an LED, and you want to turn the LED on or off remotely. If your device follows the guidelines detailed by the On/Off Cluster, then your device can be controlled by the exact same ZigBee enabled wall switch discussed above. Let’s take that one step further. Replace the ZigBee enabled wall switch with a smartphone application. Say you have an existing home automation solution with a smartphone application that controls your ZigBee enabled lights (like SmartThings). Since your LED device adheres to the ZigBee On/Off cluster commands, it is now possible to control the LED by that same smartphone app! Your device just joined the Internet of Things!

This project is going to focus on the radio hardware setup and communications required to talk to a ZigBee HA network hub (SmartThings) over ZigBee standard Clusters. We will use a Propeller microcontroller connected to a Digi XBee ZB radio to communicate with the hub. The circuit is simple and you can use any number of existing Propeller prototype boards.

Each ZigBee profile has stringent security requirements that must be met before a device is allowed to join a network. Your SmartThings hub uses the ZigBee Home Automation profile security model, so we will need to configure our radio to meet those specs. To make a ZigBee network secure, each network generates its own unique network encryption key used to encrypt network packets. Your device must have this key to communicate, and that is all taken care of during the network “join” process.

The ZigBee coordinator’s (SmartThings hub) primary role during a join is to give your radio the network key and allow it to join the network. To get the network encryption key from the coordinator, our radio must be configured with the proper trust center link key. Think of it as a password you must give the coordinator before it will give you the network encryption key.

Once this step is complete, your radio is programmed to join any ZigBee HA network; you won’t have to do this again. As soon as you reset your radio, it will start looking for an open ZigBee HA network to join. To allow it to join the network, you will need to tell SmartThings to open the network and allow a new device to join. (More on this later. For now, you can unplug your radio and move on to the next step.)

On pin 13 of the Propeller Mini, we connect a 10K ohm pull-up resistor and pushbutton to ground. This button will also be used to control the LED and send commands to SmartThings.

The XBee radio will look for a network to join that matches its security settings. Every time you see “FF” displayed on the screen, it is searching on a new channel; “23” means it found a valid coordinator but it is not allowing it to join at this time. To allow our device to join, we have to open the network for joining. Proceed to the next step to join the SmartThings network.

From your smartphone, open the SmartThings app (Figure 11) and go to the Marketplace; scroll until you see “Connect New Device” as shown in Figure 12. Tap on “Connect New Device” to tell SmartThings to open the network and let new devices join. After a few minutes, you should see the WeMo Bulb pop up on the bottom part of your smartphone’s screen (Figure 12). We are impersonating that device and you can tap to configure it and change its name to “My LED” or just tap “Done” to accept the defaults.

Back on your Parallax Serial Terminal screen, you will notice that ZigBee packets are starting to flow as shown in Figure 13. Your device has joined the SmartThings Home Automation network and now can be controlled with your smartphone.

Bang! Your LED will turn on and off as you push the button (Figures 14 and 15). Since SmartThings is cloud-based, you will be able to take your smartphone anywhere you have cell phone or Wi-Fi signal and control your LED.

In a follow-up article, we will walk through the code details of what’s going on behind the scenes and add more functionality to our device by adding support for the Level Cluster that will allow us to dim the LED, and ZigBee binding that will allow us to push the button and change the status of our LED in SmartThings in real time. NV

An over-the-air update coming later this month will turn Samsung’s standalone SmartThings hubs into controllers for the new smart home standard Matter. The v2 hub will control Matter devices over Wi-Fi and ethernet, while the current hub and SmartThings dongle will also act as Thread border routers. Samsung is the first company to publicly announce Matter certification.

Jaeyeon Jung, Samsung Electronics corporate vice president and head of SmartThings’ mobile experience business, told The Verge in an interview that the company received its Matter certification early on Wednesday, October 12th, a week after Matter launched. Michelle Mindala-Freeman of the Connectivity Standards Alliance, which oversees Matter, confirmed that it started issuing certifications this week and said Samsung was among the very first to secure one. Samsung said the certification is for the hubs, with the timeline for the dongle certification still being determined.

During the Samsung Developer Conference Keynote this week, Mark Benson, head of SmartThings, announced Matter support would be rolled out to its platform this month. Jung confirmed to The Vergefollowing the keynote that Samsung plans to push over-the-air updates to all existing v2 and v3 SmartThings hubs and the SmartThings app on Android. The SmartThings dongle and the software-based SmartThings hubs built into newer Samsung smart TVs, monitors, and Family Hub fridges will be upgraded to support Matter at a later date, says Jung.

While the upgraded hubs will still support Zigbee and Z-Wave, they won’t be Matter bridges, at least not anytime soon. “We don’t have a plan to support that function yet,” says Jung. “SmartThings users will be able to continue to use those devices connected to a SmartThings hub, but existing Zigbee and Z-Wave devices won’t be exposed to Matter.”

The good news is that SmartThings v3 hubs (now made by Aeotec) and the $35 dongle for Samsung appliances with SmartThings software hubs will become Thread border routers. “We worked with Silicon Labs to use software to simultaneously run Zigbee and Thread using the same hardware chipset,” says Jung. “Once we roll out the software, SmartThings v3 hubs will support both Zigbee and Matter over Thread devices, along with the dongle, too.”

This means if you have a compatible Samsung smart TV or smart fridge and you pick up the $35 dongle, you’ll have a SmartThings Matter controller with a Thread border router ready to go when the update arrives. Of course, there are no Matter devices available to control yet. But with the launch of the standard last week, we should see products start to roll out this year.

Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, and Apple Home are some of the big smart home platforms signed on to support Matter. Apple and Samsung have already updated their compatible hubs to be Matter controllers, and we expect to see updates arriving on the other platforms shortly.

In addition to not exposing Zigbee or Z-Wave devices connected to the SmartThings hubs to Matter, Jung says Samsung has no plans to add its smart TVs or appliances to Matter as devices, meaning they will only be controllable through the SmartThings app and not other Matter controllers. TVs are in the first Matter spec, but appliances are not. (Samsung is a member of the Home Connectivity Alliance — an organization of major appliance manufacturers aiming to do for appliances what Matter is doing for the smart home, so someday you could control an LG washing machine in the SmartThings app and vice versa. The Vergesawa demo of this, but there’s no launch timing yet).

Jung says Samsung’s smart appliance ecosystem is one of the reasons the company thinks consumers will choose to use SmartThings over another platform now that Matter is making compatibility of devices less of an issue in the smart home. (SmartThings arguably built its brand on being the most open platform of the major players).

She also pointed to the SmartThings Home Life services, a new feature in the SmartThings app that groups smart home functions into energy management, cooking, pet care, and air quality to provide actionable advice and control. Currently, these services only work with Samsung devices (except for energy management, which can monitor the energy use of all devices connected to SmartThings). But Jung says, with Matter, Samsung plans to support more devices in these services. “We seek to become an open platform so people can benefit from using SmartThings with all the smart devices they have in their home,” she says.

However, by not enabling the bridge function in its hubs, Samsung’s claim of pursuing platform openness with SmartThings rings just a little hollow. It’s the only platform of the big four that supports both Zigbee and Z-Wave devices, and many devices in the first Matter categories — lights, locks, sensors — use Zigbee and Z-Wave protocols. This meant Samsung had a unique opportunity it didn’t take. It could have been the first platform to bring Zigbee and Z-Wave devices into Matter, allowing all Matter-enabled platforms to control any compatible devices connected to its hub. Instead, SmartThings hubs and dongle will be the first way to get Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Matter all in the same ecosystem — but it will have to be SmartThings’ ecosystem.

UPDATE, Friday, October 14, 4:05 PM: Samsung reached out to clarify that the SmartThings dongle is not yet Matter certified. We have updated some language in the article to reflect this.

Suddenly, SmartThings looks like the most comprehensive smart home platform, at least at a glance. Both Google and Amazon are rapidly expanding the number of first-party devices that work with their Alexa and Google Assistant services, but neither has their own TV or refrigerator yet, outside of products from other manufacturers. Samsung SmartThings has both of those things, as well as

It"s been awhile since we took a close look at SmartThings, so I decided to spend some time with it -- on my phone, and in the Samsung fridge and television installed in the CNET Smart Home. What is it like to have a home wholly operated by SmartThings (and Samsung) in 2019, you ask? Spoiler alert: not great. Read on to find out why.

SmartThings pressed on. There"s still a SmartThings hub (now third-gen) and an updated app. And SmartThings still has an open platform with tons of compatible third-party partners

It was almost as if no time had passed, and I don"t mean that in a good way. SmartThings gave me a lot of trouble in 2015 when I tested the second-generation hub, along with tons of SmartThings sensors and third-party devices.

But knowing how much SmartThings has grown over the years, it felt only fair to see if it had also matured into the platform I"ve always wanted it to be. Unfortunately, SmartThings was as temperamental as ever, just on a larger scale.

There are also a variety of devices installed at the CNET Smart Home that are compatible with the SmartThings platform and already paired to it on the app.

Let"s move on to the specifics of testing out SmartThings on the app, the fridge and on the TV.The updated app is my preferred way to interact with SmartThings -- although it"s still glitchy and tough to navigate.Tyler Lizenby/CNET

All that said, the app -- even with the latest app version -- crashed inexplicably at least four to six times during my testing. It still takes a lot of clicks and different screens to reach the settings you want and it"s easier to view the Arlo Pro 2 live feed in the Arlo app than on the SmartThings app.

The SmartThings connection on the Family Hub fridge performed significantly worse than the app. The fridge itself is a solid product with tons of apps and clever features.

SmartThings was another story. I connected the exact same SmartThings account on my app to the fridge. Instead of getting a list of all of the connected devices like the Play Light Bar and the Pro 2 camera, I got... crickets. It didn"t list a single device.

The fridge"s giant built-in LCD screen instead said, "After you connect devices in the SmartThings app on your phone, you"ll be able to monitor and control them on your Family Hub." Hrm.Where are all of my SmartThings devices? Who knows.Tyler Lizenby/CNET

The Q6 Series TV fortunately worked better than the fridge. Login via the SmartThings app on the TVs home screen and use the Samsung TV remote to scroll through -- and control -- your SmartThings devices. I was able to turn my Philips Hue light bar on and view my Arlo Pro 2 camera.Viewing the Arlo Pro 2 camera connected through SmartThings on the TV screen.Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Annoyingly, my SmartThings devices didn"t always show up when I opened the TV app. I"d log out and back in and they"d usually appear, but once or twice I had to log out twice before they loaded.

While SmartThings has clearly grown up, I still wouldn"t recommend it as a whole-home setup today. I experienced similar glitches in 2015 as I did testing the updated system in 2019. The app crashes, for instance, shouldn"t still be happening.

There"s also a question of value. If you want SmartThings in your home today in a major way, you"ll have to dish out thousands of dollars for a Samsung fridge and TV -- and that doesn"t include the other investments in third-party devices like lights and cameras.

Relatedly, even if the fridge integration had worked better, I wouldn"t ever think to head over to the fridge to turn on a light or adjust my SmartThings settings.

The idea of the fridge as the "hub of the home" makes sense in many ways -- I particularly enjoyed the TV mirroring feature, but I don"t want (or need) my fridge to be an access point with all of my smart home devices. I do like the idea of being able to view a security camera feed on the fridge, but, again, that specific SmartThings integration didn"t work for me.

That feeling isn"t specific to Samsung, SmartThings or Bixby. I wouldn"t want an Alexa-, Google Assistant- or Siri-platform-enabled LCD fridge display either. Voice sans screens is the simplest way for a whole family to interact with smart home devices -- no phone, no fridge, no TV needed.

It will be interesting to see if and how the Galaxy Home changes things for Samsung and SmartThings. Samsung is way behind the voice assistant curve, which seriously hurts its appeal today.  But once the smart speaker hits stores, I have to ask -- what"s the point of the SmartThings hub? Does the Galaxy Home even need a SmartThings hub?

All of this speaks to the diminished role of hubs in homes -- I feel similarly about Wink. Samsung"s clunky execution of SmartThings hasn"t helped things either.

This certainly sounds like it could make Bixby better, but that won"t mean much if I can"t manage to connect my SmartThings devices to the fridge. We"ll see.

Consumer giant Samsung has decided to deep-six its entire SmartThings product line, starting with users’ home hubs. As of last week, SmartThings hubs stopped working. They’re essentially bricked because, like all cloud-based services, they sail upon the whim of the host company. Samsung decided it didn’t want to build and support SmartThings products anymore, so it simply blew them away.

This, despite the fact that SmartThings has something like 62 million active users, with tens of millions signing up every year, according to Samsung’s head of SmartThings engineering, Mark Benson.

“Your SmartThings Hub… will no longer work, but the SmartThings app will still let you monitor and control Wi-Fi or cloud-connected devices you may have set up in your home,” saysSamsung’s official statement. “However, without a SmartThings hub, you will no longer be able to automate and control Zigbee, Z-Wave, or LAN devices.” Not much of a smart home system, then.

Like beer, we don’t actually own cloud-connected products, we just rent them. The latest case in point is Peloton, makers of expensive exercise bikes and treadmills. Part of what differentiates a Peloton from that rusty old stationary bike in your parents’ garage is the built-in LCD screen that streams live exercise classes led by your favorite instructor and new best friend. There’s an extra subscription fee for that, of course.

Samsung SmartThings is one of the oldest smart home platforms still actively supported, as it was originally founded in 2012 before being acquired by Samsung in 2014. SmartThings isn"t just the management/setup tool for Samsung"s own connected products — it can connect to thousands of other platforms, just like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Managing everything you"ve connected to SmartThings is currently only possible through the Android and iOS mobile apps, but now Samsung is finally building a way to access SmartThings devices through a web browser.

Samsung started development on a web panel for SmartThings in May 2019, though the closed alpha was shut down in October of that same year while Samsung prepared "for a much larger test leading to a full release." According to later forum posts from a SmartThings developer, the web app was still in development, but the project was "running into shifting requirements from legal and security teams." The panel appears to have gone live for anyone with a Samsung account earlier this week, accessible from my.smartthings.com, though the developer noted that it"s still not finished and no official support is available.

Once you log in to the SmartThings web dashboard with your Samsung account, you"re greeted with the main screen that lists your favorite devices — these don"t sync with the mobile app yet, but they will at some point. There"s also a tab that displays all your rooms and the devices in each one, as well as an "Automations" page that shows your smart home scenes and active third-party connections.

It would be great to see Samsung continue to develop the SmartThings web panel to have as much functionality as the mobile apps. The panel works well on both desktop and mobile, and unlike many other modern web apps, it isn"t slow to open. Google and Amazon don"t have a similar web panel for their smart home ecosystems (except the basic Alexa web app for connecting/disconnecting third-party services), so Samsung is alone in expanding access to the web.

Samsung previously offered a Windows application for managing SmartThings, but it was deprecated in 2019. The company is now working on an updated desktop application, primarily designed for its new Galaxy Book Pro laptops.

SmartThings is compatible with 100s of smart home brands. So, you can control all of your smart home gadgets in one place, including your Samsung Smart TV and smart home appliances.

With SmartThings, you can connect, monitor and control multiple smart home devices quicker and easier. Connect your Samsung smart TVs, smart appliances, smart speakers and brands like Ring, Nest and Philips Hue - all from one app.

- Track, monitor and save money on energy with SmartThings Energy. See how much your home and compatible Samsung devices cost to run, and try various energy saving features, such as AI saving mode, or schedule devices to run during off peak hours.

If you"ve bought into the company"s smart home efforts previously, you may have noticed a disparate selection of apps to control each one, like Samsung Connect, Samsung Smart Home, and SmartThings. This made no sense except than to show clearly how separate each department is inside the company. But that"s no more. As announced at CES, Samsung plans to consolidate "more than 40 apps, including Samsung Connect, (...) into the SmartThings app." 40 apps, yikes... and yes!

But there"s more good news for those of you who joined in the Samsung / SmartThings ecosystem. Beside the fact that the platform will be included in the company"s new fridge and TV, hundreds of new devices are planned to be brought to SmartThings, and Samsung plans on making the app even more powerful:

A version of the SmartThings app will be added to Samsung devices that have a display, like TVs, fridges, and more, allowing you to control your home without reaching out for your phone.

As part of the overhaul, devs and makers and service providers will have the ability to create custom panels to expand the capabilities of the app. SmartThings already has custom SmartApps and Device Handlers for devices that aren"t officially supported, but the new panels are a bigger deal than that. Samsung will make 300 new panels available, but anyone can create one too.

Samsung says that when it acquired SmartThings, it was in 15,000 homes, now it"s in over 1 million. Given the new announcement and the recent expansions of the hub into more products (SHIELD Link, TVs, fridges), this looks to be just the start. As a SmartThings owner, I really can"t wait to have all my devices plug more naturally into the platform and app. I"m looking at you, Nanoleaf, LiFX, WeMo, Nuki, and all those cameras that aren"t yet supported like Netatmo and Nest.

All Samsung Devices and Hundreds of Third-Party Products Will Now Be Connected with SmartThings Through the Creation of a Single Next-Generation SmartThings App

SmartThings Announces Industry Leading Growth, Increasing Its Customer Base by 300% in the Past Year, Connecting Over 10MM Devices and Over One Million Homes

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SmartThings, the industry leader for consumer IoT technology and the easiest way to turn a home into a smart home, announced today that Samsung plans to connect all of its devices to SmartThings, and the SmartThings app will become the single app for consumer IoT across all of Samsung. After staggering growth over the last year, the platform is now in over 1MM homes and is connected to over 10MM devices. Moving into 2018, SmartThings will continue pioneering the future of the smart home by rolling out developer enhancements and next-generation services, all of which will be managed easily through the SmartThings app and cloud.To strengthen its leading market position and advance the Samsung smart home ecosystem, Samsung plans to bring hundreds of additional devices to the SmartThings platform. To easily connect these devices, the SmartThings app will become the single app for consumer IoT at Samsung in Q1 for both Android and iOS users and will be available globally. As a result, more than 40 apps, including Samsung Connect, will be consolidated into the SmartThings app. Beyond smartphones, SmartThings and Samsung plan to add a version of the app to other Samsung devices that have a screen, including televisions, Family Hub refrigerators, and more.Planned for launch in Q1 2018, the new SmartThings app includes unique capabilities for partners including device makers, developers, and service providers who can expand the app through the development of custom in-app panels that enable it to go beyond its baseline capabilities. As a starting point, Samsung and SmartThings have created over 300 panels which natively integrate with all devices connected within the SmartThings ecosystem. Unprecedented in the industry, this allows service providers around the world more opportunities to work with the open platform, ultimately improving consumer lives everywhere.“SmartThings has always been dedicated to creating both valuable and enjoyable experiences for consumers by better connecting their homes. Our open-ecosystem is the most versatile, secure, and simple offering, making it the ideal solution for consumers, device makers, and developers,” said Alex Hawkinson, CEO and Founder of SmartThings. “We will continue to pioneer the smart home and further expand the reach of our open platform. Our goal is to pave the way for next-generation services, security and energy saving technology to open new doors for consumers.”SmartThings has grown exponentially since the Samsung NEXT acquisition in 2014, increasing its customer base by fourfold in 2017. At the time of the acquisition, SmartThings was in 15,000 homes. Today, SmartThings has reached over 1MM homes and the SmartThings Cloud is connected to over 10MM devices, making it the largest smart home ecosystem available. A testament to the growth, SmartThings now has over 350 “Works with SmartThings” devices certified to work with its platform, 50,000 developers and a cloud ecosystem deployed in 88 countries, giving consumers the most accessibility to achieve their own smart home.“Through our work with Samsung and our open-ecosystem format, we’re able to identify what consumers, device makers, and partners want and need for the smart home of the future,” states Robert Parker, SVP of Engineering at SmartThings. “With the rollout of the SmartThings app and the new, unique panels for developers, we are leading the next stage of consumer IoT which will create more services available in the smart home industry.”"We look for entrepreneurs with world-changing ideas and vision, and that"s what we saw in the SmartThings team when we acquired them in 2014," said David Eun, President of Samsung and head of Samsung NEXT. "SmartThings has helped bring IoT and smart home technology to the mainstream, and we are still just in the early stages of its evolution. With SmartThings, Samsung is well-positioned to drive mass adoption."ABOUT SMARTTHINGSSmartThings is the industry leader for consumer IoT technology and the easiest way to turn a home into a smart home, bringing together devices, developers, and services to give consumers peace of mind, savings and convenience. Built on the founding belief that specific problems in the home can be prevented, SmartThings has become the world"s largest and most open smart home ecosystem available on the market today, connecting all your smart devices and services in one place. SmartThings connects over 10MM devices globally. Third-party devices are certified through a “Works With SmartThings” (WWST) program; leading supported devices include Philips Hue, Netgear Arlo, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and many more. Founded in 2012 and based in Palo Alto, CA, SmartThings was acquired by Samsung NEXT in 2014 and operates independently as a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics. For more information, visit www.smartthings.com.

SmartThings Inc. is an American home automation company headquartered in Mountain View, California with a software development center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded in 2012, it focuses on the development of eponymous automation software and an associated array of client applications and cloud platforms for smart homes and the consumer Internet of things.

SmartThings was conceived by co-founder and once-CEO Alex Hawkinson in the winter of 2011. Hawkinson tells that his family"s unoccupied mountain house in Colorado was extensively damaged by water pipes that first froze and subsequently burst resulting in some $80,000 worth of damage.prototype of their desired solution to such problems.Kickstarter campaign which the developers launched in September 2012 and that would go on to secure US$1.2 million in backing, making it the second largest, smart-home focussed crowdfunding project to date.

Initially SmartThings produced a suite of custom hardware and software services, including smart home hubs and sensors. In June 2020, SmartThings" engineering head Mark Benson announced that SmartThings would pivot away from manufacturing its own hardware and instead focus on software. The company hopes to enlist other companies to manufacture and distribute SmartThings hardware.Aeotec will take over its European hardware line.

Samsung has announced an expansion of its Samsung SmartThings Energy service, first launched in the U.S. in July 2021, to include several new features designed to help consumers save on their energy bills.

At launch, SmartThings Energy allowed users to monitor and manage the energy usage of Samsung’s own home appliances and air conditioners (2022 models). This expansion involves partnerships with three third-party manufacturers: Copper Labs, a producer of whole-home energy-monitoring devices; Eyedro, a company that manufactures device-level energy monitors; and WattBuy, which operates a platform to save money by finding the least-expensive electric utility in their area and/or to connect them with local solar-panel providers.

Eyedro’s EyeFi-2, currently priced at $149, is a whole-home energy monitoring system that you would install at your electrical panel, similarly to the Sense Energy Monitor we reviewed earlier this year. Like that product, Eyedro’s systems can report energy consumption at the device level, and it will report energy production. In addition to SmartThings integration, it can also be used with smart speakers powered by Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

Copper Labs doesn’t sell products or services directly to consumers. It instead provides utility companies with technology that can track their customers’ energy consumption in real time, so that the utility can provide those customers with actionable insights in an effort to manage peak demand and enhance energy efficiency. Consumers can likewise monitor their entire home’s real-time electricity consumption in the SmartThings app, and they can set up automations to reduce their energy consumption to reduce their electric bill, including reacting to demand response events. Copper’s service works with and without smart electric meters.

Google and Samsung want to work together on smart home compatibility. The two companies put out dueling press releases today, saying that Google Nest devices would work better with Samsung SmartThings, ending a war between the SmartThings community and Nest/Google/Alphabet that has been going on for years. Samsung says that "Google Nest devices, including thermostats, cameras and doorbells, will be "Works With SmartThings" (WWST) certified, allowing users to seamlessly control their smart homes through SmartThings." Nest has long been the most insular smart home company, and now it sounds like Nest devices are finally going to start playing nice with your other smart home devices.

Besides supporting all the radios, SmartThings is also very open on the software side of things. Samsung offers users an IDE that can run custom code on the hub itself or in SmartThings cloud infrastructure. Anyone can write a "SmartApp"—a package that offers custom logic and even custom UI in the SmartThings app—or a "device handler," which lets anyone spin up support for new hardware. Users can load up the SmartThings Web dashboard and install whatever they want and even sync their installs to GitHub repositories for updates. You can also access your SmartThings devices outside of the official SmartThings clients through OAuth, leading to awesome third-party interfaces like the ActionTiles dashboard. Advertisement

SmartThings is very open, and with a huge community, as a device manufacturer, you really have to go out of your way to stop SmartThings compatibility from happening. How powerful is the SmartThings developer ecosystem? Well, Nest support was already previously possible on SmartThings, thanks to the hard work of the SmartThings community. The app was called NST Manager (a censored version of the previous name, Nest Manager), and it would pull the Nest thermostat, camera, and smoke detectors into SmartThings, allowing for centralized control and coordination with your other smart home devices.

Nest has been the complete opposite of open compared to SmartThings. As a company founded by former Apple employees, Nest has never been particularly concerned with cross-compatibility and was more focused on building a walled garden. Nest built the "Works with Nest" ecosystem, but it was never a complete smart home solution, and it never resulted in easy, open usage of Nest hardware. If we go back to the battle over NST Manager, Nest, even under Google, would break NST Manager all the time, seemingly on purpose. While the "Works with Nest" ecosystem let some companies sign up for Nest integration, the developer rules were so restrictive that NST Manager"s only workaround to get data out of the Nest hardware was to have users individually sign up to be their own "Nest Developers," meaning they had to fill out a lengthy Web form, select the right permission, and generate a token, all so they could remotely control hardware that they purchased.

Google killed Works with Nest in 2019, which finally killed NST Manager for good, along with many other beloved Nest apps and integrations. Now, after years of acting like this, Google says it wants to play nice. "You"ll be able to access and control your Nest devices, like Nest cameras, thermostats and doorbells with the SmartThings app," the company says. "And even Samsung smart home devices, like smart TVs and refrigerators." That last bit sounds like Google will also be making a Tizen app for Samsung smart devices. Advertisement

the Android 11 review (which included a Google Assistant-powered smart home control panel), Google"s smart home support is exclusionary toward devices that compete with Nest products. Google supports controlling SmartThings-compatible lights (and, really, every light imaginable), because Nest doesn"t make a light bulb or switch, but it doesn"t work with door locks, because Nest makes a door lock (Google and Samsung both seem to have forgotten about the Yale x Nest Lock in today"s announcement). Google"s "Nest Hub" smart display can show camera feeds, but only Nest camera feeds. The Nest exclusivity here isn"t doing Google any favors, and more open hardware support would really improve the appeal of the Nest Hub smart display.