There are several interesting threads to this story (pun intended), for example:
- Samsung has partnered with a 3rd party to help roll out smart plugs, rather than developing these devices in house.
- It further signals Samsung’s commitment to driving adoption of Matter as the all-encompassing smart home connectivity technology.
- At a higher level this is a partnership between Samsung and ABB
Eve systems has had significant success in the Apple ecosystem, supplying a wide range of smart home devices such as plugs, cameras, several sensors, lighting and even audio. It was established in 1999 (as Elgato), grew to a company of about 50 employees and was recently acquired by ABB (June 2023).
Smart plugs are a key piece of the smart home puzzle, enabling users to easily add controllability to almost any home device. They are a bridging technology, which could be replaced long term as more smart home devices have built in connectivity. Using Matter enables control of a disparate number of devices, using many different connectivity technologies.
Energy management is becoming increasingly important, both from an environmental and cost perspective. The article states “Building on the success of SmartThings Energy, this integration tracks the energy use of existing devices and appliances. Furthermore, users can integrate their non-Samsung appliances, fostering cross-platform compatibility and making energy savings accessible to a wider range of users.” This cross-platform compatibility is the key feature here, and is designed to work with both Android and Apple devices.
In the long term we expect that ecosystems such as SmartThings will fade into the background if Matter can take over as the unifying smart home technology, we are tracking developments closely and looking forward to seeing how this is displayed at CES this year in the smart home section. The number of companies here continues to grow, there are 765 companies associated with Smart Home and Appliances at CES 2024.
