Harman to further SmartThings development

Harman, a Samsung company, will take on key SmartThings development tasks including with developing and deploying the SmartThings app
For your reading pleasure

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Hmmm, I wonder if this was a coincidence or last night’s outage pushed this to happen or was in the works and pushed it to happen sooner? This might be a good thing. At least, to me, it seems that Samsung is very much engaged in SmartThings development.

Wow.

Harman, also a Samsung company, will take on key SmartThings development tasks including with developing and deploying the SmartThings app, work third party sensors into the SmartThings ecosystem, develop SmartThings Cloud and develop the SmartThings roadmap.

I’m pretty sure this means a full-scale push into the Artik Lego block approach to IOT. Samsung has been teasing that for about three years, but I think this means it’s here.

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It was definitely in the works.

They mention in car automation…queazy about that. Cadillac is touting the automatic steering and breaking and I am sure others will follow suit. Chrysler had a problem with an attack where the attacker was able to remotely disable the engine–which would be good for police.

I wish these car manufacturers would keep engine read-only and isolate breaking, steering, and ignition from the Internet and leave it only to media, GPS and communications. All we need is an attacker hijacking a car and remotely piloting it like on the one scene in Fast & Furious 8–which I hated and thought they jumped the shark with that scene and the one with the nuclear sub.

You might want to take a look at last week’s SmartThings Blog post - integration with a Tesla! Sounds like it is more about controlling your smart home from the car rather than controlling the car remotely.

https://blog.smartthings.com/news/smartthings-updates/smartthings-evolved-vehicle-environments-eve/

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Yeah, but I do worried how connected certain parts of the car are getting as far as convenience is going. Certain things just should not go on the Internet.

Well the majority of car control panels are running Android. Have their own cellular modem. I see no reason why I shouldn’t be able to install ST (or any other app of my choosing) in it (without voiding the car warranty).

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I wonder how reliable the geopresence on a Tesla would be - must be better than a smartphone since the GPS isn’t shutting off intermittently to preserve battery, right? Maybe it’s time to order a Model 3, damn this hobby gets expensive fast…

It looks like Harman’s taking over the main development role for SmartThings platform. Harman being an East coast outfit and SmartThings being a typical Silicon Valley startup, I have serious doubts this is going to be a smooth transition. Too many cooks in the kitchen, if you ask me.

As far as I know, that’s not what’s happening.

I suggest people go read Harman’s actual press release (first link in the TC article).

According to Sandeep Kalra, Senior Vice President and General Manager, HARMAN Connected Services, “We’re thrilled to be an engineering partner for Samsung SmartThings and to help grow the SmartThings ecosystem. […]"

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breaking and I am sure others will follow suit. Chrysler had a problem with an attack where the attacker was able to remotely disable the engine–which would be good for police.

If you read deeper into the FCA attack, it was on a Jeep and the “hackers” had to physically gain access.

Good point: the actual press release says “assist” and “collaborate.” That isn’t how the technical press has been reporting it, but that doesn’t mean the press is right. :wink:

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wow…so what happens to the iriginal smartthings team? This sounds kike ine of those reorganizing announcements where acquired organizations are absorbed and no longer exist…
I didnt see any reference to changes in the business model, but you can be sure there will be some…

I’m reading this as more engineering being added, not as a replacement. Maybe it’ll lead to that, but hard to say right now. One bullet from the press release I do like:

  • Integrate third-party sensors into the SmartThings ecosystem

That would be great, especially if they can add feature rich device handlers that surface everything a device can do and communicate!

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only one particular attack required physical access. There were quite a few updates later that didn’t, it used the cell network through a single dedicated TCP port. (aka, really, really easy to scan the entire cell network to find affected vehicles)

It is my interpretation that Harman will be taking over development of the mobile app. I am concerned with the transition, but given that the mobile app has never been one of SmartThings strengths, I’m not sure this is going to be a bad thing in the long run.

Harman, also a Samsung company, will take on key SmartThings development tasks including with developing and deploying the SmartThings app, work third party sensors into the SmartThings ecosystem, develop SmartThings Cloud and develop the SmartThings roadmap.

Let me quote TechCrunch:

Harman, also a Samsung company, will take on key SmartThings development tasks including with developing and deploying the SmartThings app, work third party sensors into the SmartThings ecosystem, develop SmartThings Cloud and develop the SmartThings roadmap.

Sure, “taking on” does not mean “taking over”, but it sound more than just “collaboration” to me. Only time will tell. Hope this “collaboration” goes well for you :slight_smile:

Please don’t. The TechCrunch article reads into the Business Wire article information that isn’t there. The “take on” part is an editorialized version and is nowhere in the actual Business Wire release.

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