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 new Samsung SmartThings Station
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.