It hasn’t asked me for access to contacts, but ST still requests access to my microphone every time I launch the remote feature. My understanding is that it’s trying to use sound outside of the audible spectrum to re-authenticate between my phone and my TV (which is cool!). I don’t want to enable microphone access; I’d be fine with it for a second for a specific task like re-authentication but won’t enable it over more general time periods. The Android permissions system isn’t flexible enough to give one-time access for a few seconds and that’s not ST’s fault.
Could ST at least gracefully accept the lack of permissions instead of prompting me every time I try to use my remote? Combined with the issue I described in my reply to SmartThings Android app: Sign in goes to "Browser not supported' - #20 by incognito, this has created a frightfully bad user experience.