Whether you’re interested in investing in the wide-ranging hardware from SmartThings or you’ve already picked up a SmartThings Starter Kit, here’s our guide on how to use it all. It’s not the most intuitive system out there, but it is one of the most stable and if you’re willing to put a bit of time and effort in to get things set up, you’ll be well-rewarded with a proper smart home. So, if you have a door lock from Yale and a smart bulb from Philips Hue you can pair them both to SmartThings and have your light turn on when you come home. SmartThings is not just one central place to control all your gadgets, it also knows how to talk to all those gadgets and how to get them to work together.
While Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa are all excellent ecosystems in their own way, what makes SmartThings great is its inclusivity.Īlmost everything works with SmartThings, and while Samsung used to develop its own line of SmartThings devices, its real strength is that you can add pretty much any Wi-Fi, Zigbee or Z-Wave device to this hub and control everything from one app. For the smart-home dabbler with some lightbulbs, a door lock and a couple connected plugs, a smart speaker can act as a hub to help make your gadgets work together.īut for a really smart home you need a real smart home hub and ecosystem and Samsung’s SmartThings is not only the original, it’s widely considered to the best.