Samsung under the name of SmartThings promoted themselves as the logical centre of interest of things at the 2015 IFA conference in Berlin.
One if its new devices is a sleeping disk that you place under the bed. Samsung says it’s capable of measuring your sleep and your blood pressure without even touching you.
The new SmartThings hubs seeks to offer consumers a way to enter the world of the connected home and uses the Zigbee and Z-Wave wireless protocols. They’re commonly used by connected devices such as smart lighting, sensors, and a new breed of internet-connected door locks.
However the hub’s ability to connect to lots of devices already in the market is what Samsung believes will make its ecosystem a winner. Items such as D-Link cameras, and even Philips Hue lightning (via a bridge) will work with the SmartThings hub. It will also connect standard internet addressable cameras (IP-devices).
However a Samsung spokesman said it won’t connect to Apple HomeKit devices which contain a proprietary Apple chip. Nevertheless the hub already supported 206 devices across manufacturers.
Users can buy their connected cameras or sensors independently or buy a starter kit for $US199. It contains a motion sensor, a multi sensor that can detect, say, whether a garage door is open or not and an arrival sensor which will track whether a family member, your dog or cat, is home or out and about.
The other part of Samsung’s connected home internet is apps made by SmartThings. They’re available across platforms on iOS, Android and Windows Phone and enable users to set up sequences of events that are triggered when you say, leave home, arrive back, fall asleep, wake up or start your car.
So you might program your SmartThings system to turn off your TV, lighting and turn the air conditioner down if you happen to fall asleep on the couch.
Or you might want your smart hub to switch on your coffee machine and toaster, and turn on heating in the bathroom and the radio when your sleeping disk detects that you have woken.
SmartHub will store video should your connected cameras detect an intruder and you can receive alerts, an SMS or push notification if this happens.
Video is continually buffered so that the system can save footage of an intruder just before they were detected at your home.
Samsung has been working with Dr Christos Mantzoros from Harvard University Medical School on its sleeping disk which uses a system called Samsung SleepSense to track and analyse sleep as well as manage what happens to your appliances and heating system when you fall asleep or wake up.
Being able to do this, and to measure your blood pressure as well, while under your bed sounds an amazing achievement, but we are yet to see how this works in practice. What happens if a couple in bed rolls over? Exactly who would the sleeping pad be measuring?
Samsung also announced an app called Car Mode for its Galaxy range that turns your smartphone into a menu driven entertainment system suitable for the dashboard.
It has formed a partnership with VW which will let owners control some aspects of their car from a phone or smartwatch, even when they’re not in it. This could be to unlock the car or to alter the air temperature.
Samsung pumped other devices such as a front loading washing machine that you can add clothes to mid cycle without it jettisoning all its water, a new robotic vacuum cleaner, the VR 9200 with a lot more suction power: 70 watts instead if 0.5 watts found on some models.
A Samsung representative said there had been a downturn in sales of robot vacuums due to their poor suction, but this was reversing with the advent of more powerful cleaners. The VR 9200 will cost you $1799 in Australia.
Via: [Herald Sun]
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