Samsung gave us a tour of its first flagship smart home showroom in Thailand, located at SB Design Square CDC Ekamai-Ramindra in Bangkok. Opened on the 8th of November 2023, the showroom contains Samsung’s IoT products, SmartThings-certified devices, and IoT devices with Matter connectivity.
Many of the products on display in the showroom were from Samsung’s partner companies like Aqara, SwitchBot, humble, Netgear and Philips Hue. A Samsung representative told us that these products were programmed to work seamlessly with the SmartThings app. But in general, the SmartThings app works with IoT devices that support Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Matter connectivity, in addition to Works with SmartThings products, Harman, Dacar and Samsung.
At the showroom, we got to control IoT devices like light bulbs and light strips from Philips Hue, curtain rollers from SwitchBot, a pet feeder from Aqara, and ambient lighting from humble. These were on top of Samsung’s own IoT devices and appliances like refrigerators, Neo QLED TVs, robot vacuum cleaners, and air conditioners.
Managing all these smart products in your home is a new feature in the SmartThings app that allows you to create a layout of your house and pin the products in the virtual space as they are in reality. This makes it easier to manage, identify, and control all your smart home products linked to SmartThings using a hub like a Neo QLED TV or a virtual hub like your smartphone.
We did ask the Samsung representative what TV models are supported, and a definite yes was only given for premium models launched in 2023 and 2024.
However, if you don’t want to use a virtual input, SmartThings offers a physical smart button. You program the button through the app with the actions that you want to trigger when clicked. One of the buttons on display was called Goodbye Time and was programmed to turn off all the appliances, lights, and switches, and close the curtains. Clicking it again would reverse the actions.
By now, you might have noticed that most of the products mentioned here are not officially sold here in Malaysia. That said, we were told by the Samsung representative that these products are not geo-locked. So if you happen to visit Thailand, you could pick up these products and use them at your home in Malaysia with the SmartThings app.
We are also informed that Thailand has already received the AI Energy Mode feature on the SmartThings app. With supported products, you can toggle an AI Energy Mode in the SmartThings app which will automatically optimise the energy consumption.
For example, switching to this mode with a washing machine will adjust the soap and water quantities to optimise time and energy consumption based on the clothing amount in the washer. TVs on the other hand will use data from the ambient light sensor to adjust the brightness of the display accordingly.
You’ll need to check if your device or appliance supports this feature, though it is currently not available in Malaysia yet, and we were told that there are no concrete plans to bring it here.
