Samsung's Unveils SmartThings Hub To Control Internet Of Things In The Home

Samsung Just Turned Your Phone Into A Giant Remote For Your House
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To naked eye, it's a small white box that appears to be quite harmless. But Samsung's SmartThings Hub could be the device that takes over our homes and lives, in the best way possible.

Its capabilities include making your coffee before you wake up, setting your shower at the right temperature and letting you know if there's an intruder in your house while you are away on holiday.

The SmartThings Hub is Samsung's attempt to make our homes smarter by connecting mundane objects such as toasters and light switches to the internet -- the Internet of Things.

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It works using a range of sensors, monitoring a variety of factors including moisture, movement, pets and people -- that's assuming your loved ones don't mind wearing a tiny prison-like tag.

The Internet of Things has been a much awaited carrot, temptingly dangled in front of us without ever letting us have a taste.

Well, Samsung's latest offering is as close as we have come to taking a bite.

The carrot however, is an expensive one.

The hub costs $99 (£65) and if you want all the trimmings, you'll have to dig deep. Each add-on is priced at around £29.

How does it work?

As with all smart things, the hub requires an app, available from Apple's app store, Google Play and Windows store.

For each smart device, you'll need to tell the app your daily routine and what you would like your smart devices to do once you've left your house or gone to bed

Setting up the hub appears to be quite straightforward as it simply needs to be connected to the router using an ethernet cable.

The most important piece to Internet of Things puzzle, is of course the "things" or connected devices including smart door handles, coffee-makers, smoke alarms and light switches.

Samsung is not the first tech company, and it won't be the last, to make strides in this market.

In May, Google unveiled Brillo -- an operating system that will quite literally let you control the planet Earth, as long as it's connected to the Internet/Bluetooth/WiFi.