SmartThings now works offline, making commands faster and more reliable

Over the last few months, Samsung has rolled out some significant updates to its SmartThings app. The app received a major UI overhaul in June this year, which introduced a more user-friendly design that helped users quickly access their smart home devices. The following month, Samsung rolled out a new feature to help users reduce their energy bills by monitoring and target-setting their Samsung appliances and HVAC systems on the app. Now, the company has announced another major upgrade that localizes automation and connected devices, making commands faster and more reliable.

The feature, called SmartThings Edge, is a new framework that localizes automation and connected devices. It allows devices and automations created in the SmartThings app to run locally, even without an internet connection, resulting in “faster responses for consumers, simplified experiences for developers, and a safer platform for all.”

Talking about the new framework, Samantha Osborne, Vice President of Marketing and Business Operations at SmartThings, said, “SmartThings Edge is the most advanced platform in the IoT space. We engineered Edge to be forward thinking and prepare for the ever evolving industry. We’ve continued to enhance and evolve our technology with our partners, developers, and customers in mind to make the end-to-end experience more robust than ever before.”

Although the new framework doesn’t bring about any user-facing changes, on the backend SmartThings Edge transforms connectivity and user experience noticeably. It greatly improves the speed of automation by eliminating the need for cloud-based processing. On top of that, SmartThings Edge allows for local device support on a home network. This means that users will be able to run their automations even without an internet connection. The new framework supports Zigbee, Z-Wave, and LAN-based integrations at the moment, but Samsung plans to connect more protocols, like Matter, in the future.

For more information about SmartThings Edge, click on this link.

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