Of all the exciting things I saw at CES 2025, one development stands head and shoulders above the rest; Samsung’s plans for the AI home of the future and how the tech giant plans to bring all its devices into the fold.
Ever since I started reporting on smart home devices, I’ve believed that it is the individual most important area in consumer technology. It is linked to how we personalize our home and express ourselves through it smart lightinghow we make our lives more efficient through automationhow we maintain a comfortable and safe living space, while at the same time moderating our energy consumption. It’s not all rosy, of course, with privacy and security concerns yet to be resolved and cost barriers aplenty.
However, things are changing; alongside Matter improving smart home interoperability, Samsung’s comprehensive products and Galaxy AI are lined up to offer the earliest example of a truly connected ecosystem for the whole home and lifestyle, blending gadgets across verticals with smart home infrastructure.
It is true, I have been confirmed; the smart home isindeed the molten core of our future technology-enabled lives. At least based on Samsung’s future vision for SmartThings.
Check out the latest episode of the TechRadar podcast where we discuss the biggest Samsung news at CES.
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Things are getting smarter
When Samsung bought SmartThings in 2014, the smart home was even more of a nebulous concept. Connected device technology was still growing, the price of smart devices was high, and no one could really agree on how we would actually end up interacting with our smart homes, with the first Amazon smart speaker with Alexa recently introduced later that year .
During CES, I spoke with several executives at Samsung about the future of SmartThings; from Taeyoung Huh, Head of CX Offering Team to Jaeyeon Jung, Head of SmartThings Team, as well as Deborah Honig, Chief Customer Officer of Samsung Electronics UK, and one thing became clear: Samsung has huge plans for its wide range of products.
“We wanted our devices to make consumers’ lives easier and better, that has been our vision all along. After our acquisition of SmartThings in 2014, we are making this a reality step by step,” explains Jung.
The South Korean tech giant historically keeps its options open when exploring new technologies, as Jung explained during our exclusive roundtable. “We keep innovating our hardware with new features, and if you have to rely on someone else’s platform, you’re always behind. That’s not how we innovate.
“Samsung has a wide range of portfolio products and we want to provide great lifestyle experiences [across these devices]” she added; and by all accounts, it sounds like the tech giant is poised to achieve this by unifying all of its many record-spinning arms into one mega limb.
Connected devices are the future, but not only in the form of white goods and home furnishings. Instead, everything from wearables like Samsung Galaxy Ring, Samsung Galaxy phones and Samsung Galaxy SmartTag 2 will become part of the connected home with some exciting applications that could prove to be really useful.
Technically assisted housing
Samsung has already packed its smart living features into devices across its product range. For example, with a Samsung phone, you can approach SmartThings devices and a remote control widget will automatically appear. But Huh says there is much more to come. As an example, he says features like Sleep Mode could connect to your smart ring to adjust devices in your home when you fall asleep, turn off distractions like LED indicator lights on air conditioning units, or adjust settings on noisy appliances.
Or devices like your Galaxy SmartTag can measure how much you walk your dog, provide breed-specific pet care guidance, and work with devices like the Samsung Bespoke Jet Bot Combo AI robot vacuum to monitor your pets at home. But none of these features are yet scheduled for official release, meaning we have even less of an idea of how Matter-compatible devices might fit into the bigger picture.
With these new developments, new possibilities are unlocked in technology-supported living – provided that the majority of your devices are made by Samsung. There are additional benefits to decorating your home, according to Huh; he notes that increasing the number of Samsung smart devices in your SmartThings ecosystem can also build your home’s security, with each acting as an additional node for the Blockchain-based Samsung Knox security system.
It’s a promising vision of the future of the smart home, and one that feels really realistic for years to come. Samsung’s screen-everywhere mantra means our homes can be filled with viable smart hubs, and its continued efforts to develop Galaxy AI and Bixby into truly useful assistance platforms are giving tough competition to Apple and Google, both of which are lagging behind on the hardware front.
Grab your popcorn, because the smart home wars have only just begun. For now, at least, my bets are that Samsung will create the first viable whole-home smart device ecosystem, but I can’t wait to see how its biggest competitors respond in kind.
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