Now Google Nest and Samsung SmartThings will play on the same “team” after years of rivalry. For those who don’t know, the SmartThings, in addition to being a physical device and an app, is also a Samsung service that allows you to not only control a connected home, but also track and find the company's devices such as headphones or smartphones.
Samsung and Google have developed a collaboration scheme that will allow you to control the entire smart home ecosystem from Google Nest. And the best part: the first results will be available from January 2021.
Unity is strength
With the partnership between the two giants, Nest devices will be incorporated into SmartThings to set up automated controls for multiple devices simultaneously. The list is extensive, including light bulbs, thermostats, cameras, TVs, speakers, doorbells and several other items.
This means it will be possible, for example, to access images from cameras compatible with Nest via Smart TVs, or even on the Family Hub refrigerator.
Integration between the two services has been available for some time now, but previously it was very limited (on/off). The agreement with the terms of the “double” will greatly expand the number of possibilities. This way, Google Home users will be able to fully control SmartThings devices.
For developers, it is now possible to discover how set up devices and integrate with Google Nest.
SmartThings
This year, we have already seen the Google Assistant arrives on 2020 Samsung Smart TVs and the company promises to expand its services even further. Google has even started to simplify the process of linking its accounts with Samsung accounts.
Additionally, the Mountain View company also announced in the same release that Android 11 will arrive on Samsung's new Galaxy smartphones. In other words, they could be referring to the Galaxy Note S20 line launched this year, or very possibly with the new Samsung family Galaxy S21, which arrives at the beginning of the year.
Samsung devices have also been adjusted, and can be controlled by users in Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese and Korean. It's only fair, after all, we're talking about a company based in Seoul.
Meanwhile, the smart home is becoming more and more of a mass market, with competition increasing. So this partnership between Google and Samsung could certainly mark a new era in this market.
For 2021, a heavyweight group formed by Amazon, Google and the Zigbee Alliance (of which Samsung is a part) should launch a unified and open source standard for smart home devices, the Project Connected Home over IP. The merger of Samsung SmartThings and Google Assistant could be the first step towards that goal.
Through which channels you reach those people, classic and out of the box. XDA Developers.
