The Connectivity Standards Alliance recently held Unify 2026 in Austin, and the recordings are now available. If you’re interested in Matter, Thread, Zigbee and the general direction of smart-home interoperability, there is quite a lot worth watching.
SmartThings was well represented at the event. Daniel Moneta from Samsung SmartThings took part in the main-stage panel “Shaping the Next Era: Ecosystem Leaders on the Future of Open Standards”, as well as sessions about how device manufacturers can benefit from open standards and contribute to Matter.
One session in particular caught my attention afterwards: “Building with Matter: Key Decisions, Misconceptions & Opportunities.” It was aimed at manufacturers that are considering adding Matter to their products, and the moderator was Jacob Voegele from Samsung SmartThings.
Which is where things become slightly ironic.
A few months earlier, the CSA had published a statement from Daniel Moneta with the very clear sentence:
“SmartThings is all in on Matter.”
And that is not really wrong. SmartThings has invested heavily in Matter. Samsung puts Matter controllers into hubs, TVs and appliances, SmartThings supports commissioning and Multi-Admin, and Samsung is deeply involved in the CSA and in the development of the standard.
But there is one rather obvious question:
Where are Samsung’s own Matter devices?
I don’t mean Matter controllers, commissioners or SmartThings Hub software embedded in a TV. I mean actual Samsung products that can be commissioned as Matter devices into SmartThings, Apple Home, Google Home, Home Assistant or another Matter ecosystem.
Samsung is not just an ecosystem operator like Apple or Google. It actually manufactures refrigerators, washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, air conditioners, ovens, robot vacuums and TVs.
And by now, Matter supports many of those categories. Matter 1.2 added refrigerators, room air conditioners, dishwashers, washing machines and robot vacuums. Matter 1.3 followed with ovens, cooktops, extractor hoods and clothes dryers.
So the absence of Samsung Matter endpoints can no longer really be explained by saying that Matter does not support Samsung’s product categories.
Apparently Jennifer Pattison Tuohy from The Verge noticed the same contradiction. At Unify she asked Daniel Moneta why Samsung appliances were not part of Matter. According to her report, his answer focused on Samsung providing a great first-party experience through SmartThings.
That is an interesting answer at a conference devoted to open standards and interoperability, especially when SmartThings is simultaneously helping to explain to other manufacturers why they should add Matter to their own products.
Put somewhat unfairly, but not entirely inaccurately:
Aqara: Please make Matter devices.
IKEA: Matter would be great.
Eve: Absolutely.
TP-Link: Matter opens your products to more ecosystems.
Samsung: We have a really great first-party experience through SmartThings.
Perhaps “SmartThings is all in on Matter” just needs a small footnote:
* Matter devices manufactured by other companies may apply.
Joking aside, I think there is an important distinction here.
As an ecosystem and controller platform, SmartThings is clearly one of Matter’s strongest supporters. But that is not the same thing as Samsung Electronics embracing Matter for its own connected products.
At the moment, the strategy looks distinctly asymmetric:
Third-party Matter device → SmartThings: absolutely.
Samsung appliance → another Matter ecosystem: not so much.
There may also be a clue in Samsung’s involvement with the Home Connectivity Alliance. HCA approaches appliance interoperability mainly through cloud-to-cloud integration, which keeps the manufacturer’s own platform in the middle. That is quite different from Matter, where the device itself participates directly in an open interoperability standard.
That does not prove that Samsung has made a deliberate decision against Matter endpoints. But after several years of Matter supporting many of Samsung’s core appliance categories, the absence is becoming harder to dismiss as merely a technical limitation.
And that is what I found most interesting about Unify 2026.
SmartThings stood on stage explaining why manufacturers should embrace Matter, while Samsung Electronics itself still appears not to sell the one thing being promoted:
a Samsung Matter device.
Maybe that will change. Matter has the device types, Samsung has the hardware, and SmartThings certainly has the expertise.
So perhaps Unify 2027 just needs one additional session:
“Building with Matter: Key Decisions, Misconceptions & Opportunities — Samsung Electronics Edition.”
I would watch that one.
CSA Unify 2026 recap:
CSA Unify 2026 agenda:
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy’s report from Unify: