With Google’s new play for the smart home space — Google Home — ready to drop on us any day now, it’s time to wonder just what it will be able to do. Sure it will have the inbuilt Google Assistant, it will be able to stream music and perhaps even control other streaming devices on your network, but what else? According to today’s rumours, Google Home will launch with support for the Samsung SmartThings platform.
This one partnership could singlehandedly transform the Google Home from great toy to amazing smart home device. The SmartThings platform has a long established ecosystem of both first party accessories and third party integrations. It will be interesting to see if Google Home will have full access to all SmartThings devices or just a particular range.
SmartThings does not have a large footprint in Australia as yet, however, through the hubs integrations you can piece together a decent system by combining things like Belkin switches and outlets, Philips Hue lights, Harmony remotes and other bits of kit.
It’s also worth wondering if this moves signifies that Google may not be implementing their own first party smart home solution based on their IoT-focused Brillo and Weave. While having a full ecosystem at launch is understandable, I hope this isn’t at the expense of a Google ecosystem play.
With only days until the expected unveiling we won’t have long to wait, and with our intrepid Android team already on their way to San Francisco, you can be sure we will bring you all the hands-on coverage we can.
I wonder if Google Home will function as a hub or if it will require both.
It won’t be a hub, A hub has to have software support for all the home automation devices.
This is excellent news! Now if only Samsung would release the SmartThings hub for Australian Market…..
Scamsung has been talking about releasing SmartThings to AU for years.