What do I like about SmartThings and why do you have to come to the Workshop tomorrow?
In recent years, I have experienced many smart home platforms. But to talk about an ecosystem that can really be used every day, conveniently and without hassle, Samsung's SmartThings is a name I highly appreciate. Especially after recent updates, from a simple control application, it has become an extremely deep link between Galaxy phones, TVs, refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines and hundreds of devices from other brands. Tomorrow we will have a Workshop to share about Samsung's SmartThings ecosystem. We invite you to come and get gifts. You must come to know more about SmartThings, super cool!!!
Broadcast feature: Super fun and realistic home announcement speaker
When you actually use it, you'll see how convenient it is. For example, if you come home and forget something outside the coffee shop, you can easily tell the other guys to put it inside. It takes a long time to text and then you're out of luck. It's the most convenient thing to say. This feature also combines very smoothly with automatic scripts (Routine). With a Vietnamese family living together for many generations, I find this an extremely natural way of communicating.
Routine automation: When home really understands your habits
If Broadcast brings convenience in communication, Routine is the heart of SmartThings. Its operating principle is very familiar: If a certain condition appears, the system will perform the corresponding action.
What I like is that the activation conditions are very diverse. It can be based on the time, day of the week, the phone's GPS location (when we're approaching home or leaving), device status (like an open door sensor, a motion sensor, or a washing machine finishing a cycle), weather, sleep data from Samsung Health, or simply a manual button press.
Next is Delay Actions which allows creating delays between steps. For example, in the morning scenario, at 7:00 a.m. the night light turns on softly, at 7:15 a.m. the coffee maker operates and at 7:30 a.m. the curtains are opened and soft music is played. There is also a feature to add a confirmation step before running the script to avoid mistakenly clicking, or a feature to share the Routine via QR code so that relatives can scan it and use it immediately.
In hot and humid weather conditions in Vietnam, I often set realistic scenarios such as: When I leave home, I automatically turn off all lights, air conditioning, lock the door and turn on Away mode. When you are about to arrive home, thanks to GPS positioning, the air conditioner will automatically turn on 10-15 minutes in advance to cool the room, the hallway light will light up with a welcoming message. At night, the motion sensor in the hallway only turns on a soft light so as not to cause glare. The system even incorporates energy monitoring to automatically reduce air conditioning capacity when there is no one in the room, helping to save significant electricity bills.
Collect everything into a single app, use the TV or Refrigerator as a Hub
Thanks to built-in support for connection standards such as Matter and Thread, adding devices from other brands becomes easy without the need for a cumbersome intermediate hub. I can also manage up to 10 different locations such as my own home, country house or parents' house. The 3D Home Map interface is displayed very intuitively, touching each room will immediately see the entire device in operation.
In terms of stability, hubs can be clustered together and automatically fail back if one device fails. On Galaxy phones, the device control panel is also located right in the quick settings bar (Quick Settings), swipe down to operate immediately. Each location can manage a maximum of about 300 devices, 20 rooms and 20 members.
Friendly to Vietnamese families, both old and young children can use it well
A smarthome system, no matter how modern, is difficult to use and is very inconvenient for the family. At this point, SmartThings does a great job supporting a complete Vietnamese interface and clear translation. The convenience also lies in the installation stage. Every time you buy a new Samsung device, nearby phones will automatically display a pop-up notification to connect. Once set up, just scan the QR code and you can invite everyone in the house to manage together.
Devices familiar to Vietnamese homes such as WindFree air conditioners, BESPOKE refrigerators, washing machines or TVs connect to the system very smoothly. For the elderly in the house, after I have created the Routine scripts, they just need to press a simple button or let the machine run automatically according to position, with absolutely no barriers when using it.
Expanded ecosystem, smooth connection from Samsung devices to other brands
The core point of course is still the compatibility between Samsung products: from Galaxy phones, Galaxy Watch watches, Buds headphones for quick positioning and control, to TVs, BESPOKE refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, robot vacuum cleaners or soundbars.
However, the big plus is that SmartThings is not closed at all. The company expands its links with hundreds of third-party brands. You can easily integrate Philips Hue lighting systems, cameras or sensors from Arlo, Ring, Aqara or IKEA devices that use the Matter standard (such as light bulbs, switches, door sensors, water leak sensors, temperature). As long as the device has the "Works with SmartThings" badge or the Matter standard, it can be put directly into the common control app without having to install a separate app.
In short
Although there are still a few small areas of improvement depending on the device, it's clear that SmartThings is improving day by day. Family communication through Broadcast is more natural, smart Routine scripts thanks to AI, centralized multi-device management and extremely friendly to Vietnamese users are the reasons why I choose to stick with this platform.
If you are using Samsung devices or are looking for a neat smart home solution and don't want to be confused by too many control applications, SmartThings is definitely a name worth experiencing. What do you think about using this ecosystem? If you have any interesting Routine scripts, please share them below for me and everyone to learn from!