Artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are going to turn the home into a connected paradise, with an essential protagonist who becomes the brain of all this scenario. And Samsung wants its SmartThings platform, created for this purpose, to be an essential actor. In this way, the Korean company will offer the customer an intelligent television experience so that they can access their content quickly and easily.
A personal assistant, a unique remote control and a Smart Hub will be the instruments to manage all compatible connected devices and appliances, thanks to the new SmartThings application.
SmartThings is an open standard for IoT that will connect Samsung products and any brand adhering to this protocol. Smart is the implementation of this approach in the entire line of Samsung TVs, and starts from the moment the TV is removed from box.
The first thing that the user has to do, before setting up his Smart TV, is to download the SmartThings application on his mobile device, be it Android or IOS. Customers who have Galaxy S8 Smartphone or later already have this app on their device. Once discharged, the TV on power-up detects the SmartThing app via Bluetooth. From here you just have to connect, configure the WiFi and use the SmartThing application to configure the Smart Hub screen and the applications that the client wants to appear on the main panel of your TV.
SmartThings not only helps to set up the TV. It also achieves that the mobile device can become a platform to see and interact with all the IoT devices that the user has in the home. But also SmartThings offers the client additional functions such as notification of connected IoT devices, display of the universal guide on the Smartphone, calendar appointments, notifications of the content of the TV, control of the TV on the Smartphone, control panels of all IoT devices connected, or access to the new functions of Ambient Mode and Universal Guide available on the Samsung Smart TVs of 2018.
One Remote, Universal Guide, TV Plus and Steam Link
Once the Smart TV is connected and configured with all the devices and with the SmartPhone through SmartThing, the customer can use the Samsung One Remote to navigate the content and operate the television using voice control. 2018 is the third year in which Samsung offers the One Remote solution that allows to control with a single command all the connected devices. It has autodetection, so the control will automatically recognize all the devices, controlling them at the moment, to avoid having the room full of controls.
In 2016 One Remote was able to control the television, the decoder, the video game console and the Blu-ray player. In 2017 Samsung's product control for audio and video was added as systems and speakers for home theater. And in 2018 Samsung adds the compatibility with audio and video products connected by optical cable.
With Samsung's Universal Guide, the user has a personalized panel that provides access to content from all sources, and integrated into a single screen for easy navigation. In this way Samsung is able to offer recommendations based on preferences and what the user has seen before, so the more you use it the better the recommendations.
The main screen of the Universal Guide is the "For you" screen, which offers recommendations according to your tastes, being a new feature in the television sets of 2018. This screen will show the current and upcoming content of the television in direct, 4K contents, and news , among others. For sports and music the offer of the guide is similar to that of the televisions of 2017. And the voice assistant allows vocal navigation and searches in the universal guide.
TV Plus, another reference feature of Samsung's Smart TVs, shows a separate icon that appears first in the Smart Hub section and adds content from different OTT providers to the TV channel line, making it easier to access that content. This platform being one of the largest in offering 4k content.
Solutions for the smart home
Also in the field of the IoT, and using Samsung's SmartThings platform, "V-Home by Vodafone" allows customers to control smart devices from their homes from the smartphone, compatible with the Samsung SmartThings ecosystem.
