With the upcoming arrival of the Matter protocol, which should standardize and simplify the management of connected devices in the home, regardless of their brand or platform, Samsung is getting up to speed. The Korean giant announces SmartThings Edge for faster and more reliable home automation.

The Wi-Fi network at the heart of the home // Source: URL

With the proliferation of connected objects, which reach almost 10 products per household these days, the battle to manage your home is intensifying. Generally, voice assistants and associated management systems from Google, Apple or Alexa have taken over. Our smartphones above all, and to a lesser extent tablets and voice assistants with or without a screen, have become the precious sesames for the magic to work.

On this momentum and on the foundations of the former Zigbee Alliance, the Connectivity Standards Alliance was born in the spring, carried by Google, Apple, Amazon, Ikea, Signify, Somfy, SmartThings or other Legrand and even Orange. Their idea is now to launch a unified protocol called Matter, which replaces the old CHIP (Connected Home over IP), but with the same idea of ​​simplifying the management of the connected home.

Among the more than 180 partners within the Alliance, Samsung does not want to be outdone. The Korean company exists there through SmartThings, its home automation platform that allows you to control everything from a Galaxy smartphone. This application designed for Samsung products and the brand's mobile devices is now also available on iOS and other Android brands.

A system that distances itself from the cloud

With Matter in sight, each giant wants its solution to be the one preferred by consumers. Because the promise of the protocol is to work in a universal, uniform and cross-functional way with all products, regardless of the manufacturer, the initial protocol or the voice assistant. Google tends to favor its Google Home solution, Apple its HomeKit and the Home app, Amazon has Alexa. Samsung is therefore betting on a brand new system: SmatThings Edge.

This optimization of its SmartThings platform is intended to be more reliable and more stable, in particular through the LAN connection to free itself from the cloud. In essence, the entire Samsung system will be organized around the SmartThings Hub, which will perform all the basic functions of connected products (turn on/off, secure, open/close, etc.) using the local network. Saving time in the execution faster than going through the cloud, also more secure and safer in case of internet concern.

Source: SmartThings

The SmartThings Hub will support devices in LAN, but also in Z-Wave or Zigbee. And obviously, this is above all put in place to support Matter, the future unified protocol in the house. 2nd and 3rd version SmartThings hubs will be compatible as well as recent Aotec hubs.

For the user, setting up SmartThings Edge will be seamless and they won't see any changes in the app. The requested tasks will just be done faster, because they don't have to go through the cloud when processing and go directly to the Hub from the home network.

This system could also appeal to users who do not want to let their data fly to the cloud by offering a local alternative.

To follow us, we invite you to download our Android and iOS application. You can read our articles, files, and watch our latest YouTube videos.