After Years of Fighting It, Nest Will Work With Samsung's SmartThings

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Ron Amadeo: Google and Samsung want to work together on smart home compatibility. The two companies put out dueling press releases today, saying that Google Nest devices would work better with Samsung SmartThings, ending a war between the SmartThings community and Nest/Google/Alphabet that has been going on for years. Samsung says that "Google Nest devices, including thermostats, cameras and doorbells, will be "Works With SmartThings" (WWST) certified, allowing users to seamlessly control their smart homes through SmartThings." Nest has long been the most insular smart home company, and now it sounds like Nest devices are finally going to start playing nice with your other smart home devices.

As a user of the Google and SmartThings ecosystem, there are a few things missing from the announcement that I would like to see. SmartThings is supporting Nest and Google, but I don't see anything about Google reciprocating and supporting SmartThings better. Like I complained about in the Android 11 review (which included a Google Assistant-powered smart home control panel), Google's smart home support is exclusionary toward devices that compete with Nest products. Google supports controlling SmartThings-compatible lights (and, really, every light imaginable), because Nest doesn't make a light bulb or switch, but it doesn't work with door locks, because Nest makes a door lock (Google and Samsung both seem to have forgotten about the Yale x Nest Lock in today's announcement). Google's "Nest Hub" smart display can show camera feeds, but only Nest camera feeds. The Nest exclusivity here isn't doing Google any favors, and more open hardware support would really improve the appeal of the Nest Hub smart display.

Smart home tech depends on cooperation

[nwaack]

If you don't want to support other people's products, then GTFO of the smart home market. Period. Goodbye.

Re:

[bhcompy]

Yep. Google's walled garden sucks ass, but at least they discontinue products so fast that no one who does any research is going to invest in their shit. Samsung has been surprisingly open with Smartthings and it's great. There's really no other system even close. The amount of custom stuff you can do is great. My Onkyo stereo doesn't have support for any smarthome products explicitly, but it has network connectivity for its own app, and some enterprising person wrote a Smartthings application that can

Re:

[Yaztromo]

You can't get that deep with Apple ... smarthome controllers, at least in any reasonable fashion.

Only if you're not aware if Homebridge [homebridge.io], which has plug-ins for nearly anything you could possible want to connect to HomeKit -- including one for SmartThings.

I'm a SmartThings user too, but if you have any Apple hardware you want to easily interact with your SmartHome, Homebridge is a must.

Yaz

Re:

[bhcompy]

Homebridge is one of those things that works until Apple decides it's ready to shut it down, either through takedowns or just closing off the APIs. I'm wary of basing my automation system around that because there's a lot of cost and planning that goes into getting everything running(ultimately why I went with Smartthings, because at least it's explicitly supporting all of this rather than "well, you can, but we're not endorsing it and there's no guarantees"). Also, Homekit doesn't support Zwave/Zigbee di

Re:

[Yaztromo]

Homebridge has ben around for a few years at this point. They fully emulate the Philips Hue Bridge, so if Apple decides to someone change their APIs to block them, there are going to be a whole lot of angry Hue users out there.

And you can continue to use SmartThings to actually run your automations. I don't rely on Homebridge to run any of my automations -- they're all done via SmartThings. Homebridge is useful in this case as it means all of my SmartThings (and I have quite a lot) are accessible via any

Re:

[bhcompy]

It makes sense, though I'm still wary given their history. Thank you for the thorough reply

Re:

[thegarbz]

but at least they discontinue products so fast that no one who does any research is going to invest in their shit.

That's a very idealistic view of the world. Back in reality "Works with Nest" (introduced after Google acquired Nest) became the largest and most widely implemented smart home ecosystem in the world quite clearly showing that many major firms very much invest in their shit.

Not the least of which ironically enough was Samsung. And do your point, WWN was killed by Google.

You can't get that deep with Apple or Google smarthome controllers, at least in any reasonable fashion.

Actually you can, or at least you could very much do that in a non-commercial capacity without Google's blessing. If you want to launch a pr

Too late

[sremick]

I already bought a Skybell video doorbell (better operational temp range than Ring) and an Ecobee thermostat (I really like the weather forecast). Both work with SmartThings, along with 50+ other devices throughout my home and garage.

Google burns too much karma for me to depend on their products.

Alexa won me over already

[BuckB]

I was at first committed to Google. Then came SmartThings and all of the cool things you can do. Brought home an Alexa Show and it quickly and effortlessly integrated into all the SmartThings and Ring (of course) devices. Now more Alexa devices are popping up around my house instead of google homes.

For whole house audio sync, though, chromecast is still winning.

The key is digital freedom and independence

[LibreHome]

Every detail has to be designed for that goal! [librehome.com]

And use patent to fight for freedom and independence and privacy! [librehome.com]

Not _only_ Nest cameras

[Mascot]

Google's "Nest Hub" smart display can show camera feeds, but only Nest camera feeds

Not entirely correct, it also works for my Netatmo Presence outdoor camera. I mean, the support isn't great (e.g. "turn off the lights" also disables the Netatmo's motion triggered light), but I can tell my Nest Hub to show me front door camera, and it does.

Those system can't do simple things

[LibreHome]

Such as blinking a bunch of light bulbs [librehome.com].

What else?

Re:

[sjames]

Next step, when the alarm system is triggered, have the lights emulate the Cyberpunk 2077 cut scene and give the intruders a grand mal seizure.

Two weeks later, evil kids reprogram grumpy neighnor's lights the same way.

Re: Those system can't do simple things

[LibreHome]

The limit of Libertas OS is your imagination.

Will Work With Samsung's SmartThings

[nospam007]

It's the smart thing to do.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

More like 'surveillance home'

[Rick Schumann]

So long as all these 'IoT' devices in 'smart homes' have to communicate with some 'cloud' server just to function, you are being surveilled in every room of your house.

Re:

[Voyager529]

So long as all these 'IoT' devices in 'smart homes' have to communicate with some 'cloud' server just to function, you are being surveilled in every room of your house.

Agreed...which is why having a good router is critical.

My TP-Link light bulbs are controlled by my Logitech Harmony remote...due to HomeAssistant. Both the Harmony Hub and the TP-Link bulbs have their MAC addresses tied to "deny any any" rules on my router.

Convenient *and* neutered =)

Re:

[SuricouRaven]

Not me. I have a smart thermostat - and it's 100% cloud free. All the products on the market are so terrible, I ended up building my own.

It looks for the presence of my phone on the network. If my phone leaves the house - and by implication, me - then the heating goes off. When I get back again, the heating comes on.

No Thanks

[bsdetector101]

Don't need smart things in my house...especially if they tattle on me. lol