Samsung's SmartThings cloud is coming this spring
You'll soon be able to control your connected Samsung gadgets through one program instead of a messy bunch of apps, the company announces at CES 2018.
Samsung's co-CEO HS Kim announces that its SmartThings cloud service will be coming this spring.
This spring's forecast will be cloudy for Samsung.
The Korean tech giant said at CES on Monday that its SmartThings Cloud service will be available this spring, but offered no specific timeframe.
The SmartThings Cloud would allow people to control their internet of things devices from a single app, instead of having one for each gadget. Think about being able to control your smart television, washing machine and locks all from one hub. It will work with Samsung products, as well as connected cars running on Harman's Ignite cloud and other products that work with SmartThings.
Samsung announced the SmartThings Cloud in October, as it continues its expansion beyond phones by pushing out connected TVs and appliances.
The company has vowed that all of its products will be internet-connected by 2020. Today, 90 percent of its televisions, appliances, smartphones and tablets are internet-connected, the company said. It also said Monday that all of its devices will be intelligent through Bixby by 2020.
"We are taking Bixby to the next level of intelligence to figure out what you need before you even have to ask," Samsung's co-CEO HS Kim said. Bixby is the company's voice assistant that launched on the Galaxy S8 last year.
Samsung announced the news at the company's press conference Monday at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, with Kim pointing out how annoying it can be setting up new devices. He said the "world of connected devices is still fragmented and complex" because of how many IoT gadgets are out there. The company sells half a billion connected devices a year, Samsung's North America president, Tim Baxter, said on stage.
To make it easier for all the gadgets coming to homes, SmartThings Cloud creates a single point of control for everything, Samsung said.
"SmartThings will be your remote control for your connected devices," Kim said.
CNET's Shara Tibken contributed to this report.
First published Jan. 8 at 2:37 p.m. PT.
Update at 3:40 p.m. PT: Adds information about Bixby.
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