Samsung SmartThings hubs upgraded to Matter in this month’s Samsung SmartThings.

An over-the-air update coming later this month will turn Samsung’s standalone SmartThingsThe new hubs are now controllers Smart home standard Matters. The v2 hub can control Matter devices via Wi-Fi or ethernet. Current hubSmartThings DongleThey will also be Thread border routers. Samsung is the first company in public to announce Matter certification.

Jaeyeon Jung, Samsung Electronics corporate vice president and head of SmartThings’ mobile experience business, told The VergeInterviewer reveals that Matter certified company received it early Wednesday, October 12th. This was a week ago. after Matter launched. Michelle Mindala Freeman Connectivity Standards AllianceMatter is overseen by the.

During the Samsung Developer Conference KeynoteMark Benson (head of SmartThings) announced that Matter support will be available to the platform’s platform this month. Jung confirmed. The Verge Following the keynote, Samsung announced that it will push over-the air updates to all v2 devices. SmartThings hubs v3?, SmartThings dongleYou can also download the SmartThings Android application. Jung says the software-based SmartThings hubs that are built into Samsung smart TVs, monitors, or Family Hub fridges, will be upgraded later to support Matter.

While the upgraded hubs will still support Zigbee and Z-Wave, they won’t be Matter bridges, at least not anytime soon. “We don’t have a plan to support that function yet,” says Jung. “SmartThings users will be able to continue to use those devices connected to a SmartThings hub, but existing Zigbee and Z-Wave devices won’t be exposed to Matter.”

Good news: SmartThings v3 hubs(now manufactured and distributed by Aeotec) $35 dongleSamsung appliances that are equipped with SmartThings software Hubs will be transformed into Thread border routers. “We worked with Silicon Labs to use software to simultaneously run Zigbee and Thread using the same hardware chipset,” says Jung. “Once we roll out the software, SmartThings v3 hubs will support both Zigbee and Matter over Thread devices, along with the dongle, too.”

This means if you have a compatible Samsung smart TV or smart fridge and you pick up the $35 dongle, you’ll have a SmartThings Matter controller with a Thread border router ready to go by the end of this month. There are no restrictions. Matter devicesThere is not yet a way to control the situation. We should start seeing products this year after the standard was launched last week.

While v2 hubs aren’t capable of being upgraded to Thread and will support Matter devices over Wi-Fi and ethernet, Jung says they will be able to control any Thread devices using a Thread border routerIt can be integrated into another device. The same will be true of the software-based hubs in Samsung smart TVs, monitors, and Family Hub fridges, if you don’t add a dongle.

Jung states that Samsung does not plan to expose Z-Wave and Zigbee devices connected to SmartThings hubs, but Jung also says Samsung has no plans for adding its smart TVs to Matter as devices. This means they can only be controlled via the SmartThings application, not other Matter controllers. Televisions are included in the first Matter specification, while appliances are not. (Samsung is part of the Home Connectivity Alliance — an organization of major appliance manufacturers aiming to do for appliances what Matter is doing for the smart home, so someday you could control an LG washing machine in the SmartThings app and vice versa. The Verge saw You can find more information at Demo of this, but there’s no launch timing yet).

Jung says Samsung’s smart appliance ecosystem is one of the reasons the company thinks consumers will choose to use SmartThings over another platform now that Matter is making compatibility of devices less of an issue in the smart home. (SmartThings is a brand that prides itself on being the most open platform among the major players.

She also pointed out SmartThings Home Life services. These new features in the SmartThings apps group smart home functions into energy management and cooking. They can provide advice and control. These services are currently only available for Samsung devices, except for energy management which can monitor all SmartThings devices’ energy usage. Jung said that Samsung will be supporting more devices through Matter. “We seek to become an open platform so people can benefit from using SmartThings with all the smart devices they have in their home,” she says.

However, by not enabling the bridge function in its hubs, Samsung’s claim of pursuing platform openness with SmartThings rings just a little hollow. It’s the only platform of the big four that supports both Zigbee and Z-Wave devices, and many devices in the first Matter categories — lights, locks, sensors — use Zigbee and Z-Wave protocols. This meant Samsung had a unique opportunity it didn’t take. It could have been a platform that would have brought Zigbee and Z-Wave device into Matter. All Matter-enabled platforms would be able to control compatible devices via its hub. Instead, SmartThings hubs and dongles will be the first way to get Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Matter all in the same ecosystem — but it will have to be SmartThings’ ecosystem.