Probably is because sharptools is working closely with smartthings to be in the comercial tier, given that their business model also includes a paid plan.
And according to @joshua_lyon, this has been under negotiation for some time:
HA is completely free, and it makes no sense for them to pay a subscription to Samsung (for a commercial tier); therefore, an HA user wishing to use the SmartThings integration (a small portion of the total user base) will have to pay for the individual plan directly to Samsung. HA derives no revenue from this.
Wow. With all the speculation, anger, and confusion this has generated, you’d THINK that maybe ST would provide some clarification on this… It’s kinda sad that they are doing this to the community…
I’m uncertain about a sports car Groovy. online performance has consistently been slower and less dependable where I live.
For me, the choice feels like shifting from “one can do anything but poorly and with delays” to “now you may handle fewer tasks more reliably, even offline.”
This is precisely the point! Samsung again at enshittification. Also, technically, API calls with only some data points scale slowly, so it’s certainly not that expensive.
Point is: They could offer a free plan for individuals. And, actually, for EU citizens, I guess they have to! The EU Data Act is valid from September 2026, and it states:
Connected products shall be designed and manufactured, and related services shall be designed and provided, in such a manner that product data and related service data, including the relevant metadata necessary to interpret and use those data, are, by default, easily, securely, free of charge, in a comprehensive, structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, and, where relevant and technically feasible, directly accessible to the user.
(Highlighting by myself!)
Art 3 EU Data Act
As such, I can only urge you to contact your local (likely state) enforcement agency, if you own such a device and you are an EU citizen to complain about this. As that would apparently be plain illegal…
Without defending Samsung this only applies if the only way to access the data is via an API, then charging for API access would likely conflict with the requirement that the data be accessible free of charge.
However it is not even compulsory to supply an API, so as a service they provide, they are free to charge for it.
Thank you everyone for sharing your feedback. We wanted to add some notes on a few topics that have come up.
Rules: Rules remains available in the CLI, PATs, AWA, and the SmartThings Mobile App, but will not be free via OAuth.
CLI: The CLI will continue to be offered as a development tool for both paid and non-paid users. Commands associated with creating and managing cloud API Access Apps will require a paid tier. However, core CLI capabilities for other integrations including device profile creation, edge driver packaging, and Works with SmartThings certification remains unaffected and free to use.
AWA: Then finally for the AWA as a first party client, it won’t be affected.
OK, so I am pleased to see many of my fears, based on my focus on the ‘free tier’, appear unfounded, and that @mocelot would appear broadly correct in his focus on ‘third-party’ type access.
There remains a certain irony that, for the last eighteen months or more, users have been encouraged to use OAuth tokens to replace PATs if they can’t work with recreating them daily, only to seemingly find that they may now be perceived as third-party API users if they use them.
I am hoping that creation of VIRTUAL devices will be treated in the same way as Rules, Profiles etc as that is critical to me. I can’t see why they shouldn’t be.
I would like to know where WebHook SmartApps fit in (and also their Lambda friends for those that like that sort of thing). SmartApps for device integrations sadly disappeared a long time ago, even though they are still referred to in documentation, but SmartApps for automations have lingered on in what is left of the Developer Workspace which is the only known place they can be published by users. To me they aren’t a third-party app in the way OAuth apps are.
I still have a concern in that I use multiple SmartThings accounts. I regard it as essential to have every Location (or group of related Locations), owned by a separate account that only has access to that Location. I also can’t see how an individual developer creating an OAuth app can sensibly test it without using multiple accounts. While I might purchase one subscription, multiple subscriptions would be pushing it.
For Alexa, Google Home or Siri it is SmartThings integrating with Alexa APIs, Google Home APIs, Siri APIs, etc. The announcement does not impact those, the voice commands or the routines of those platforms.
Other platforms are different. For instance SharpTools or Home Assistant and its voice assistant Assist. In that case those platforms are integrating with SmartThings using SmartThings API and it’s exactly the target of the announcement and the paid models for the SmartThings API. Even then, seems the handling is different, SharpTools is a commercial partner and the user won’t need to pay directly to SmartThings and SharpTools may even absorb the eventual extra cost or limit features, whereas Home Assistant will count as a power user using the API so it’s the user the one paying the individual subscription to SmartThings to use the API.
A few weeks ago, I released a free plugin for the Elgato Stream Deck; with over 500 downloads in three weeks, it clearly meets a genuine user need. However, it relies on an app created via CLI that uses the API to read and write device statuses. So, if I understand correctly, this integration will stop working starting in October…
So, I’m going to have to stop this project, which was filling the gap left by the lack of an official integration.
My expectation is that you would need to have an individual subscription in order to continue development, and your users would probably need individual subscriptions to use it. That’s my best guess though, and the whole area of apps hasn’t had a lot of love since the migration from the Classic platform so a subscription layer is being applied over the largely unknown.
