The HCA initiative is starting to pay off
Samsung has some big plans for its SmartThings platform. Earlier this year, at CES 2022, the company announced its membership in the Home Connectivity Alliance (HCA) with the goal of improving compatibility with other brands in the space — and with a fresh report now showing the resultant progress, it looks like that deal is starting to pay off.
According to ETNews (via SamMobile), Samsung will likely demonstrate technology it’s been working on as part of HCA at IFA 2022 in Berlin on September 2. The ultimate goal is to enable control of multiple appliances like TVs, refrigerators, and air conditioners using a single app, and the report says that the technology for this has “entered into a last-minute technical review and will be finalized” at the event.
Samsung is actually one of the founders of the HCA (Home Connectivity Alliance), along with Arçelik, The Electrolux Group, Haier, GE Appliances, and Trane Technologies. It is joined by member companies American Standard, Beko, Grundig, Leader, and Vestel. An innovative smart home environment that will allow devices from these brands to be controlled through a single application is expected to be implemented early next year. That app is obviously Samsung’s SmartThings, which should receive a major update enhancing its abilities during the same time.
If this whole “let more smart home gadgets talk to each other” thing has you thinking of nascient cross-ecosystem smart home standard Matter, HCA chairman and Samsung IoT team leader Choi Yun-ho reiterates that this will work in a subtle but fundamentally different way (quote, provided to ETNews, translated by Google):
“Unlike the home IoT communication standard Matter to be announced in September, which is linked at the device level, HCA is linked at the platform unit, the range of connection between devices is wide, and the target is also large home appliances. Ease of use is greater.”
The report further notes that considering the aforementioned companies occupy over half of the global consumer electronics market, more than 50% of the IoT/smart home appliances around right now would be gaining compatibility with SmartThings. HCA is also working on energy savings and is developing tech that will identify and suggest the best way to use supported appliances.
Just two days ago, a Smart Things update was rumored to allow Philips Hue lights to sync with the content on your TV, and the company revealed a new Smart Things Home Life service last month meant to better integrate your smart home into the parts of life you still need to control more manually. Samsung is leaning in hard right now on its Smart Things smart home ecosystem.
