1 year ago
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Matter is a new universal smart home protocol that promises to bundle compatibility with Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung and countless others within a single standard. That's got all of the top smart home brands angling to be as Matter-friendly as possible, in one of the most obvious tech trends of CES 2023. That list includes Samsung, which used the Las Vegas tech showcase as an opportunity to unveil a new Matter hub for its SmartThings lineup, complete with built-in wireless fast charging capabilities.
Dubbed the SmartThings Station, the modest-sized, square-shaped hub hits stores in the US and South Korea this February. Pricing isn't finalized just yet, but it'll be available in your choice of white or black, and ready to start wrangling your Matter-compatible smart home gadgets almost immediately after you take it out of the box and plug it in.
"Having a smarter home shouldn't be complicated or expensive. So we wanted to create SmartThings Station as a simple, reliable and expandable smart home hub," said Jaeyeon Jung, Samsung's executive vice president and head of SmartThings, device platform center. "The number of devices in a connected home continues to grow, especially in light of the recent Matter standard launch. We're proud to play a role in making it easier to embrace this exciting technology."
Most people will connect the SmartThings Station to their home network with a quick QR scan, but setup is even easier for Samsung Galaxy owners, as the device will send a popup alert with quick setup instructions to phones from that lineup as soon as it gets plugged in. From there, the device will serve as an anchor point for all of the Matter-compatible devices in your home, helping them to stay connected to your home network and to each other.
You'll be able to manage and automate all of those devices in the SmartThings app, but if you'd rather keep your phone in your pocket, the SmartThings Station also has a single button that can trigger your favorite smart home routines with either a single press, a double press or a long press. The SmartThings Station includes Samsung's item-tracking SmartThings Find feature, so you can also program that smart button to make your phone ring whenever you misplace it. The device will also sync with Samsung Galaxy phones to keep track of peripherals like tablets, watches, earbuds, and things like wallets and keys that are paired with a Galaxy SmartTag or SmartTag Plus, complete with optional alerts if those devices ever leave the vicinity.
As for fast-charging, the SmartThings Station doubles as a 15-watt wireless charging pad, which is more than enough power to charge an Android or iOS device as quickly as possible. If you like, you can tell it to send you an alert when a device is fully charged, which is a nice touch.
We'll have a better sense of how well the SmartThings Station can hold your smart home together after we've had a chance to test it out -- and I'll be curious to see what it ends up selling for, too. When we know more in the coming weeks, we'll tell you all about it.
English (US)