here’s my high level thoughts from SDC. I’ll follow up later with some pics from the breakout sessions i found interesting for us nerds 
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Nice write up!
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Thanks for that write up!
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Now some fun stuff. ST staff may or may not comment on some of this 
31 M SmartThings owners with at least 1 devices, but “only” 0.4 M with 6+ devices
The different ways of connecting to ST:
Hub connected and cloud connected. Interesting tidbits here with the future landscape of the groovy DTH. Looks like it doesn’t exist due to the local execution engine? Will support “full customized integration”
Good diagram with the new MQTT piece of direct to cloud connection
And this very interesting slide that seems to show a device connecting to the ST mobile app via Bluetooth and then the cloud via the mobile app
Works With SmartThings (WWST) vs SmartThings Certified (CST). Kasa later spoke to how they started as CST but then went WWST, which required adding callbacks.
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SmartThings services were shown off a bit. Hard to talk to these since Air and Energy don’t exist in the USA (that I know of. They may be hidden since I don’t own any Samsung appliances). Overall it’s a nifty way for Samsung to use the data that their appliances are generating in a way to provide benefit to the owner
Notice the App Store ratings…
Rules API presentations:
Adrian and Vlad used these Nanoleaf lights spelling Samsung to demo the Rules API.
Developing an automation Groovy smartapp vs SmartThings API vs Rules API
Benefits of the rules api. During the demo, Adrian showed the same automation in Groovy vs rules api and the speed increase was definitely noticeable.
Today and future path for the rules API.
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Here’s some slides from the UI presentation. Before you ask, no details on how to customize the UI plugin for hub connected devices. I even asked her after the presentation if that was coming, but she way strictly UI design, so no idea on implementation details for hub connected devices 
Animate ALL the icons
Data tiles
Sliders sliders sliders
This is one of the best features of the new app IMO. Settings automations for the device directly on the device screen
Groups. The left slide for lights hopefully becomes reality. Currently light groups can only control on/off and brightness.
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The integration with SmartThings and bixby is appealing(maybe the only thing appealing of bixby?).
Galaxy minis everywhere, but not a single full size Galaxy Home
Features by voice assistant. As you can see, only bixby can create SmartThings automations by voice.
SmartThings automations can call bixby capsules as part of an automation.
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Ok, last bit. Works as a SmartThings Hub (WASH) program.
No surprise to most of us here, they’re really pushing sensors as the reason for needing a hub.
Now two options for a WASH product: embedded or a dongle. Here’s the new SmartThings Link Dongle. I know Vodafone will be using it, not sure if Nvidia will switch to it or not.
hardware requirements for a WASH product. Note that the ST hub piece is on a separate container so that in theory it can be updated separately from the host device and be kept up to date.
Here’s the initial new WASH devices from Calix and Vodafone. The Calix Gigaspire has embedded radios.
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Create stickiness? Seems like an odd choice of words.
Not at all, the slide obviously had the input of some marketing scholars
Another platform initiative that was already being officially talked about (in Session) at SDC’s 2 (or even 3) years ago, and which already manifested itself in the NVIDIA Shield and ADT Security Hub products.
So the only consumer facing news here is that there are a “few” additional actual partners implementing it (without mentioning that ADT abandoned their implementation).
The Hub is such a critical piece of the infrastructure, I’m not sure if consumers actually get practical benefit from WASH. Sure - it’s one less device to plug in, and a small cost savings, but a boatload of additional support issues, inconsistent firmware, etc… (My Samsung SmartThings WiFi system already receives firmware updates significantly later than standalone Hubs!).
As an idea - WASH is great. Reality may be different. The time spent since the initial discussions probably ironed out some concerns.
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One of the WASH guys mentioned that they’ll be able push patches for just the WASH part of the device on some of the newer integrations. He likened it to a containerized infrastructure where you could update just one container without having to update everything else (eg. update the WASH part without updating the whole device firmware).
A very similar to approach to what they are using with the Samsung SmartThings Wifi.
It kind of reminded me of how Google learned this lesson with Android. They started breaking out key parts of Android so they could push smaller patches to critical components rather than having to wait for major OS patches.
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Aren’t you confusing SDC with CES or did you mean the only “developer” facing news… in which case you missed a few LOL
Was anything mentioned at the conference regarding Z Wave S2 security? I know they’ve been working towards that but I haven’t heard anything in a few months.
Yeah, so at the moment, our hubs are going through Z-Wave certification, we are hoping to have that completed as soon as possible, and after that we would then have to coordinate the release of the mobile app release and the firmware.
I may sound like a broken record, but the great aspect of Z-Wave is that they really focus on interoperability, so when we do release Z-Wave S2, we are going to interoperable with all Z-Wave S2 devices and other devices.
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Thanks for the update Kianoosh!
Just to be clear, though, “interoperable” does not mean “support all features of all zwave commandsets,” right? It’s just interoperating at the Basic level (which is all that protocol certification requires for most device classes).
We’ve already discussed a couple of commands in the forums that are not going to be supported in the future.
Or has that changed?