The partnership will allow home IoT devices to be more easily onboarded to both Google Home and Smart Things, Samsung’s home device ecosystem.
The devices will need to compatible with Matter, a new open standard developed by an international alliance of more than 550 tech companies that includes Samsung, Google, Amazon and Apple.
Until now, smart homeowners have found it hard to use their devices across multiple ecosystems, with connecting devices between ecosystems often involving many steps across multiple apps to link accounts.
The Matter 1.0 standard’s multi-admin capabilities provide the foundation for connecting devices directly to multiple apps and ecosystems, “giving consumers more flexibility and choice,” Samsung said in a statement.
Users accessing the SmartThings app will be alerted to Matter devices that have been set up with Google Home and will be given a choice to onboard those devices to SmartThings, and vice-versa. This means users can easily access the devices either through the SmartThings app or through a Google Nest Hub.
Jaeyeon Jung, corporate vice president and head of SmartThings, Mobile eXperience business at Samsung, said: “As the largest Android developer, Samsung values its strong partnership with Google. Providing users with greater flexibility through this new multi-admin feature is a natural progression in our evolution as partners, allowing us to better support our massive existing and potential user base with both Samsung and Google products.”
Samsung and Google’s Matter multi-admin feature will be rolled out in the coming weeks, Samsung said.
“We are proud to partner with Samsung Electronics to offer new and existing smart home users their first glimpse into what the future of the smart home looks like and the ease of use that comes with it,” said Matthew McCullough, vice president, product management, android developer at Google.