Key Takeaways
- Samsung is teaming up with Hyundai and Kia to bring SmartThings to their next-generation vehicle infotainment system.
- The SmartThings integration will enable tracking a lost or stolen car’s location using your Galaxy phone.
- The deep SmartThings integration will enable you to control the car’s features from your Galaxy phone’s Quick panel.
Samsung SmartThings is the company’s smart home platform, allowing you to control compatible smart home devices like fridges, ACs, and washing machines. Like Google’s Find My Device network, Samsung also offers a SmartThings Network, which uses nearby Galaxy devices to relay the location of your lost Galaxy phone or accessory to the Korean company’s servers for easy tracking. Now, thanks to Samsung’s partnership with Hyundai and Kia, you can soon track the location of your vehicle using your Galaxy phone.
As a part of the strategic technology partnership between Hyundai, Kia, and Samsung, the two carmakers will integrate SmartThings into their next-generation vehicle infotainment system. This will allow future vehicles from Hyundai and Kia to support SmartThings Find, relaying their location to Samsung’s servers through nearby Galaxy devices over Bluetooth Low Energy. You can then track the car’s location using your Galaxy phone, even in a no-network area.
Hyundai says it will also allow customers to track their vehicle’s location using the SmartThings app even if it is not registered with its Connected Car Service.
The deep SmartThings integration will enable you to use the Quick Panel on your Galaxy device to control the air conditioning of SmartThings-compatible cars from Hyundai and Kia. And if it is an electric vehicle, its remaining range will show up on your phone.
Samsung claims that as a part of the agreement, it will work with Hyundai and Kia to use AI to provide “in-vehicle health monitoring via cameras and Galaxy devices, pet care solutions that optimize vehicle environments for pets, as well as integration with smart apartment solutions and SDVs.”
Time for Android Automotive to offer deeper Google Home integration
If you are heavily invested in the SmartThings ecosystem, you’ll be happy to know that Samsung will allow you to add compatible Hyundai or Kia vehicles to it in the future. You can then control other Samsung SmartThings-compatible smart home devices, like air conditioning and air purifiers, from your car.
While vehicles from Volvo, Porsche, GMC, and others use Google’s Android Automotive OS, none of them integrate with the Find My Device network or offer such deep smart home integration. They only have access to the Play Store and other Google services.
Google should take a cue from Samsung’s partnership with Hyundai and Kia and work with carmakers to offer such deep integration in their vehicles running Android Automotive OS.
