Samsung’s new SmartThings Station is a multi-function hub for your smart home – it’s a hub, it doubles as a button and it has a 15W Qi charger built in. Note that this supports the Matter protocol, which has been widely adopted by the smart home industry – it unified Samsung’s and Google’s ecosystems, even Apple added Matter support to iOS 16.1.
The basic function of the SmartThings
Station is to connect all your smart home devices, which may use one of several
protocols. This lets you control them from your phone even when you are not at
home. You can also control them from the Station itself – a single, double or
long press can trigger a scene. For example, this can turn off all the lights
and power off some devices as you leave home (and then power them back on when
you get home). It can tell your TV to go into Game mode and your phone into Do
Not Disturb mode. It can also close the blinds and lower the temperature as you
prepare to go to bed.
The Station also integrates with the
SmartThings Find network. Since it’s always at home, it can detect whether your
registered devices are at home and when they leave/come back. This includes the
devices you carry on you – phone, tablet, watch, earbuds – but also anything
with a Galaxy SmartTag or SmartTag+ attached. The SmartThings Find network is
growing fast, it reached 200 million registered devices last year.
Finally, the Station can charge your
phone, watch, earbuds and any other device that supports Qi (up to 15W). This
is a clever addition since you will want the station in a convenient location
to use its button, which also means that it is in a convenient location to
leave a device to charge. Once charging is done, you will get a notification so
you can go pick it up.
The SmartThings Station will launch in the
US in early February 2023, it will also be available in South Korea. The
Station will be available in Black and White.
