SmartThings has quickly grown into a powerful smart home platform with Samsung devices at the center of the ecosystem. The adoption of widespread industry protocols like Matter enables users to choose from thousands of smart devices to add to their set up. We had the opportunity to speak with Jeon Jung, executive vice president of Samsung Electronics and head of the SmartThings team, at the Samsung Developers Conference 2023 in San Francisco to learn more about how the SmartThings platform is evolving.
Matter support, which was announced for SmartThings at SDC 2022, is now integral to Samsung’s approach to expanding the ecosystem. Support for Matter Bridges means devices from partners like Philips Hue and Aqara can now work with SmartThings as well. Samsung’s collaboration with the Home Connectivity Alliance also brings better controls for users. Hub Everywhere brings hub capabilities to Samsung consumer electronics devices.
At SDC 2023, the company announced that its sound bars will also act as hubs. It is Samsung’s vision to enable seamless multi-hub smart homes that have large coverage and reliability. Easy Hub Replacement was a feature that early adopters asked for and it will be available really soon. On the software side, there is a new SDK and advanced APIs that enable partners to extract more value from the SmartThings platform and incorporate SmartThings Home AI into their apps. Context API is a machine learning engine for smart home platforms that uses available data to make smart home solutions even smarter.
Our discussion with Jaeon Jung provided further insight into how SmartThings continues to grow from strength to strength and what the future holds for the platform.
Answers have been paraphrased for brevity and clarity.
Q1: How many “Find Nodes” are now included in the SmartThings Find Network?
A: There are two types of devices in the SmartThings Find Network – Find Node or Scanner Node and Findable Devices. Find nodes are Samsung devices such as Galaxy phones, Samsung Smart TVs, SmartThings stations, etc. There are currently over 300 million find nodes on our platform.
Traceable devices include SmartTags, phones, credit cards, and other devices from our partners. These devices are simply signaling, or waiting to be found, while Finder nodes report the approximate location of discoverable devices on the platform.
Q2: What do you think has been the biggest challenge in building the SmartThings Find Network?
A: We built this service and infrastructure from scratch, so there were apprehensions in the beginning about whether it could be done. It wasn’t certain whether we would be able to build a scalable platform like SmartThings. Many technical challenges also had to be overcome. For example, Finder nodes have to periodically scan devices around them, so a major concern was not to penalize the battery life of Galaxy smartphone owners who opted for the platform. This was a huge technical challenge that we were able to overcome after a lot of testing and optimization.
Distributed system optimization is another challenge on a platform where 300 million+ nodes are active. Imagine you lose a SmartTag in a stadium with thousands of SmartThings Find-enabled Galaxy phones. We don’t want them all to send the location of that tag to the platform and that’s difficult to achieve without the phones talking to each other.
We achieve this through several patented approaches where the scanning interval is set dynamically based on the density of found nodes, so in such a scenario, the platform can automatically reduce the scanning interval. This varies from case to case as it does not have a set scanning interval, with the platform being able to increase or decrease it depending on the scenario. It is also a challenge to optimize the infrastructure to process all the signals from millions of devices at the same time. We will continue to work closely with engineering to talk through the roadmap to ensure efficiency.
Q3: Samsung and Google collaborate more closely than ever on software. Have there been discussions about potentially integrating SmartThings Find within core Android?
A: The SmartThings Find feature is tied to the Samsung Service Agreement and all of our Galaxy devices participate in the Find network. This generates very sensitive data and ultimately SmartThings Find is very tied to the Samsung ecosystem.
Q4: Was the new Map Full View feature introduced in response to customer feedback? Can you tell us a little more about the thought process behind it?
A: Our vision is to democratize the smart home and we want it to be easy to understand even for users who don’t have a lot of technical knowledge. To make the process of setting up and operating a smart home quite understandable, we have developed Map Full View. When you think of a home you think of a layout or floor plan to help you visualize your living space. Map Full View is our effort to make smart home more accessible in a visually appealing way.
Q5: Was the design change for the Galaxy SmartTag2 a technical necessity or a purely cosmetic decision? Is it necessary to update the design for such accessories as some of Samsung’s rivals, such as Apple, do not do so?
A: This was primarily in response to customer feedback. We launched the first Galaxy SmartTag a few years ago and received very useful feedback from customers. One feedback that came up repeatedly was that they wanted it to be not too large so that it could be easily clipped onto a pet’s collar and be more water resistant. It soon became clear to us that if we were going to make another, it needed to be smaller, easier to hang, and easier to attach to pets.
Q6: SmartTag has been primarily a consumer device until now. What use cases do you think it could enable in a business environment, and are there plans to launch a business-specific version?
A: We are working with a partner who has tracking requirements for their logistics operations. We have created a proof of concept based on the technology we created for SmartTag.
Q7: What has the response been like for SmartThings Station? What do you think is the USP that will motivate customers to buy it compared to similar products from other companies?
A: SmartThings Station has currently been launched in the United States and South Korea and the reactions so far have been very positive. People especially like the integrated button because it is simple and intuitive. Everyone knows how to use buttons. So even though we have a long press and double click function, a single button click is very well received. Since we have wireless charging functionality built in, it can also be used to trigger automations.
For example, if the phone has been in charging state for 20 minutes at night, it can trigger a bedtime routine automatically created by users. Customers appreciate this ease of use. As we continue to grow awareness of this product, we intend to bring SmartThings Station to more markets this year.
Q8: Was there any specific reason that Z-Wave was not supported on this hardware, and are there any plans for a new iteration with Z-Wave support?
A: Going forward, our vision is to support Matter based on Thread and Wi-Fi. These are the radios we will focus on. Thread and Zigbee use the 2.4 GHz band so we can support both using one chip. Since our priority is to support Mater, we can do it easily with a dual-purpose chip but Z-Wave is a different story as it will require an additional chip.