SmartThings Now: Samsung’s Proactive Smart Home Update

Samsung is rolling out a major update to its SmartThings platform, headlined by SmartThings Now — a context-aware interface that tries to surface the right controls before you go looking for them. Alongside the new interface, the update brings faster local control that works without the cloud and support for Matter 1.6, the newest version of the smart home standard to land on the platform.

The announcement, reported on October 9, marks one of the most significant SmartThings software changes this year. Rather than just a visual refresh, the update rethinks how the app behaves day to day: proactively offering help, cutting down on cloud round-trips, and opening the door to four brand-new device categories.

What Is SmartThings Now?

SmartThings Now lives at the top of the redesigned Home tab. Instead of making you dig through menus to find a device, it uses cards to surface relevant information and actions based on what is happening around you — who is home, where you are, and what your devices are doing.

Samsung gave a few concrete examples. If a family member being monitored through Family Care has not triggered any device activity for an extended period, SmartThings Now can surface a care card with options to check in or make a call. If you are approaching a pre-registered home location, the app can suggest turning on the lights and air purifiers before you arrive.

There is a small but genuinely useful touch in the mix: after you carry out an action, SmartThings can suggest turning it into a routine. Instead of repeating the same taps every evening, users can gradually build automations around the habits they already have.

SmartThings Now also reviews the previous week’s activity to suggest changes to the Favorites section of the Home tab. As seasons and usage patterns shift, for example, it might recommend removing an air conditioner card while adding a Samsung AirDresser that is seeing more use.

A Redesigned Home Tab

The Home tab itself has been reorganized. Dashboards, device cards, and service cards now sit in a more streamlined layout, with service cards using a denser design that still packs in status information and numerical readings on a single screen.

Samsung is adding a Live Wallpaper feature that shifts naturally throughout the day, and a new Floating Bar at the bottom of the screen that puts frequently used features within thumb’s reach — a nod to one-handed use on larger phones and to the latest One UI design direction.

The updated Home experience is not limited to phones. According to Samsung, it is available across SmartThings-supported devices, including Samsung Smart TVs, Family Hub refrigerators, Samsung appliances with 7-inch or 9-inch screens, and Windows devices.

Local Control Gets Faster and Smarter

Perhaps the most practical change is the expanded local control. When your phone and a SmartThings hub are connected to the same Wi-Fi network, the phone can now communicate directly with the hub instead of routing every command through the cloud. Samsung says this can improve response times by approximately 30% compared with cloud-based control, based on its own testing under controlled conditions — with the usual caveat that actual performance may vary.

SmartThings automatically switches between local and cloud-based remote control depending on whether your phone is detected at home or away, so there is nothing to toggle manually. An updated Offline Device Diagnostics page also makes it easier to bring devices back online by pushing new network information to all registered devices at once, rather than fixing them one by one.

Local control works on Android and iOS through the SmartThings app, and requires a SmartThings Station, a V2, V3, or V4 hub, a hub-enabled Samsung Smart TV, or a Family Hub appliance.

Matter 1.6 Brings Four New Device Categories

The update also adds support for Matter 1.6 from the Connectivity Standards Alliance. Samsung says the newer standard improves stability and Group Control performance on the platform, and — more interestingly — adds four new device categories:

• Energy meters for real-time power monitoring
• Closures for specialized doors and gates
• Irrigation devices such as lawn sprinkler systems
• Soil sensors for measuring ground conditions

The new categories pave the way for a genuinely new kind of smart home automation: garden and lawn care. At IFA 2026, ThirdReality introduced what is believed to be the first Matter-over-Thread soil moisture sensor, with a market launch planned for early 2027. SmartThings is already set up to drive automated watering once a Matter soil sensor joins the network — a water valve and a soil reading could soon talk to each other without any custom integration.

Background: Samsung’s Platform Strategy

This update arrives at a busy moment for Samsung’s smart home efforts. Earlier in October, the company announced that third-party developers will pay $5 per month to access the SmartThings API, and unveiled a redesigned SmartThings app experience. The SmartThings Now announcement builds on that momentum, shifting the emphasis from what the app looks like to how it behaves.

The timing is also hard to ignore. Apple is expected to unveil its first dedicated smart home hub, reportedly called HomeView, at an October 13 event, alongside a new HomePod mini and Apple TV. Samsung’s response is to double down on the platform’s two traditional strengths: broad device compatibility and now, speed through local execution.

The local-control push fits a broader industry trend. As homes fill with more connected devices, the cloud round-trip becomes the bottleneck — and the failure point when the internet drops. Matter itself was designed around local networking over Thread and Wi-Fi, and platforms from Apple to Home Assistant have been racing to do more on the local network. Samsung’s automatic local/cloud switching is its answer to that pressure.

What It Means for SmartThings Users

For existing SmartThings owners, the update promises a snappier, more helpful app — especially in larger homes where dozens of devices and routines make the Home tab hard to navigate. The proactive suggestions and the local speed boost are the kinds of changes you feel every day rather than read about.

For the ecosystem, Matter 1.6 support matters more in the long run. Energy meters could finally make SmartThings a serious energy-management dashboard, while irrigation and soil sensors open up outdoor automation that has been hard to do across brands. If Samsung delivers on the stability improvements alongside the new categories, SmartThings could become the most complete Matter controller in the mainstream market.

The open questions are the usual ones: how quickly the update rolls out to all supported devices and regions, and whether the “proactive” suggestions feel helpful or noisy in real homes. But on paper, this is exactly the kind of update a mature platform should be making — less waiting on the cloud, more anticipating what you need, and a wider tent of supported devices.