Samsung Buys SmartThings for Reported $200 Million

Samsung snapped up SmartThings, an open-platform connected home company.

Wireless Week - 08/15/2014 - The companies did not disclose the terms of the deal but Recode cited sources saying the price tag for SmartThings came in around $200 million. That total matches up with reports that surfaced in July about Samsung’s possible bid for the home automation company.

SmartThings will stay under the leadership of founder and CEO Alex Hawkinson and will become a part of Samsung’s Open Innovation Center (OIC). The company, founded in 2012, says it now supports more than 1,000 devices and 8,000 apps. The technology supports standards like Bluetooth, ZigBee, Z-Wave and Wi-Fi.

“Connected devices have long been strategically important to Samsung and, like Alex and his team, we want to improve the convenience and services in people’s lives by giving their devices and appliances a voice so they can interact more easily with them,” David Eun, Head of the OIC, said in a statement.

[an error occurred while processing this directive] Samsung’s move to gain traction in the connected home space comes in the wake of other tech giants making similar moves. In January Google announced it was buying Nest Labs, makers of the Nest thermostat, for $3.2 billion. When Apple announced iOS 8 it built in HomeKit, an application that unifies home automation protocols and controls and adds Siri-supported voice controls.

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