The South Korean tech giant isn’t exactly new to the Internet of Things, and even launched a new standard for it last month, joined by Dell and Intel. Now, it has acquired IOT company smart things, in an attempt to make all things surrounding us more intelligent.
Whatever hardware Samsung may be thinking of developing, the acquisition of SmartThings will make things a lot easier. SmartThings’ open platform already has 1,000 compatible devices, fact that gives Samsung a great head start in the IoT race. Smart homes are among the trending topics of the moment, and all the big players are already involved in this field. Google bought Nest, Apple has its own plans, so why should Samsung stay behind?
Among the pieces of hardware currently developed by SmartThings there are a hub, motion sensors, and a plug in power control unit. All of these can be easily controlled and monitored with the help of a smartphone app. While all of these may be appealing to some degree, it’s almost a certainty that Samsung is more interested in SmartThings’ open platform.
Alex Hawkinson, CEO of SmartThings, expressed in a blog post titled SmartThings, Samsung and the Open Platform his excitement regarding the future of his company as part of Samsung’s Open Innovation Center Group in Palo Alto: “We believe that there is an enormous opportunity to leverage Samsung’s global scale to help us realize our long-term vision. While we will remain operationally independent, joining forces with Samsung will enable us to support all of the leading smartphone vendors, devices, and applications; expand our base of developers and enhance the tools and programs that they rely on; and help many more people around the world easily control and monitor their homes using SmartThings.”
It’s important that Hawkinson sees how SmartThings could make Samsung better. On top of that, it’s good to see that the South Korean corporation hasn’t absorbed SmartThings completely, and that it will allow it to function independently.
I am curious as to what hardware is going to be developed as the result of this acquisition. It won’t be long until Samsung will show us something, and next year’s CES would represent the perfect stage for that.
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