The HCA is an organization founded by manufacturers of HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) systems, home appliances and TVs. The HCA was created with the goal to develop safe, interoperable standards for connected home ecosystems.

As a founding member of the Alliance, Samsung Electronics continues to relentlessly pursue innovation, including the industry-leading SmartThings platform, to aid the HCA’s mission to develop standards that promote interconnectivity.

“Through combined industry efforts in HCA, we are working to make the smart home more accessible to consumers via the devices they use every day in the home,” said Chanwoo Park, Executive Vice President and Head of Service Biz Group of the Digital Appliances Business at Samsung Electronics. “We are taking a fresh look at how devices can enhance consumers’ lives and how the appliance industry can work together to create a safer connected home that our customers can trust. Through energy savings and support for legacy household products, we believe that we can contribute to a world where sustainability starts at home.”

Interoperability To Promote Compatibility

The HCA Specification 1.0 expands on existing industry standards to clearly define interoperability standards that ensure long-lasting devices like appliances, HVAC systems and TVs operate seamlessly across brands, including legacy appliances already operating in consumers’ homes.

As a pioneer in the smart home industry, the SmartThings platform has paved the way for interoperability within the connected home. SmartThings supports Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled devices from a range of manufacturers, as well as first-party smart home appliances, providing consumers with more convenience and options within their connected home.

With the introduction of the HCA Specification 1.0, this enhanced interoperable experience will soon make the connected home attainable by more consumers than ever.

Bringing Sustainability Into the Heart of the Connected Home

The release of the HCA Specification 1.0 paves the way for enhanced energy efficiency throughout a consumer’s entire connected home through holistic data insights. Customers can raise their Energy IQ by identifying the appliances and devices in their homes that consume the most energy and adjusting usage accordingly.

Furthermore, innovations like SmartThings AI Energy Mode allow consumers to automatically manage their energy usage and costs using intelligent, real-time insights via a single app on their phone. The HCA Specification 1.0 enables member brands to provide consumers with sustainability-focused, actionable insights for better energy efficiency and real-world savings.

Competitors Working Together for Our Consumers’ Connected Future

The introduction of the HCA Specification 1.0 for interoperability is just the first step in the HCA’s standards journey. The HCA is already working in parallel with energy industry leaders to provide even more energy-efficient solutions across the household.

HCA currently includes 15 global brands, including Samsung, AEG, American Standards, Arcelik, Electrolux, GE Appliances, Haier, LG, Resideo, Trane, Vestel and others. Membership provides the opportunity to collaboratively innovate and share expertise with peers to further develop the connected home ecosystem and bring more convenience and options to consumers.

With almost 250 million registered users across over 108 million connected devices, Samsung is leveraging its leadership within the smart home industry and working hand in hand with fellow HCA members to develop and launch new solutions within the connected home landscape.

The HCA C2C interoperability demonstration is open to the public at CES 2023 as part of the Smart Home exhibition — Venetian Expo Center Booth #52739 — taking place from January 5 to 8 in Las Vegas. This technical demonstration features HCA member company solutions that leverage C2C connectivity to enable multiple apps to control multiple brands of appliances, HVAC systems and TVs for optimized interoperability.

About Home Connectivity Alliance

The Home Connectivity Alliance is a member-driven organization comprised of 15 global brands dedicated to the development and promotion of safe and secure interoperability and energy savings across long-life appliances, HVAC systems and TVs within the connected home ecosystem. For more information, visit www.homeconnectivityalliance.org.

Building a Sustainable Future

At its core, Samsung’s vision for the future is built on what the company calls “everyday sustainability.” It is a concept that inspires Samsung to put sustainability at the heart of everything it does. The company has been realizing its vision by adopting new, low-impact product manufacturing practices, footprint-reducing packaging and a more sustainable customer experience, and by responsibly disposing of products at the end of their lifecycles.

Samsung’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions throughout the production cycle have also earned recognition from the Carbon Trust, the world’s leading authority on carbon footprint. Last year, the company’s Carbon Trust-certified memory chips helped reduce carbon emissions by nearly 700,000 tons.

Samsung’s efforts in this area extend well beyond semiconductors and include expanding the use of recycled materials. To introduce everyday sustainability to more products, Samsung’s Visual Display Business plans to use 30 times more recycled plastics than it did in 2021. The company also revealed plans to expand its use of recycled materials to include all mobile products and home appliances over the next three years.

In 2021, all of Samsung’s TV boxes included recycled materials. For this year, the company revealed that it will be expanding the use of recycled materials to include the boxes’ interior packaging as well. Now, recycled materials will be incorporated into Styrofoam, box holders and plastic bags. The company also announced the global expansion of its award-winning Eco-Packaging program. The expansion of the program, which transforms cardboard boxes into cat houses, side tables and other useful furniture items, will include packaging for home appliances such as vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens, air purifiers and more.

Samsung is also building sustainability into the ways that customers experience its products. Such experiences will be integral to empowering people to reduce their carbon footprint and make positive changes together for a better tomorrow. As an example, the company introduced notable enhancements to its first-of-its-kind SolarCell Remote, which eliminates battery waste with a built-in solar panel that can be charged during both day and night.

The enhanced SolarCell Remote gets electricity from radio frequencies in devices like Wi-Fi routers.¹ “What’s more, it will be included in more Samsung products – like new Samsung TVs and home appliances – with the goal of eliminating more than 200 million batteries from landfills.² When you line them up, it is the distance from right here, Las Vegas, to Korea,” said Han.

In addition, by 2025, Samsung plans to make all of its TVs and phone chargers operate on near-zero standby power, so that the products will consume almost no energy when not being used.

E-waste is another big challenge for the electronics industry, which is why Samsung has collected more than five million tons of e-waste since 2009. For mobile products, last year, Samsung launched Galaxy for the Planet, a sustainability platform that was created to bring about tangible climate action and minimize devices’ environmental footprints throughout their lifecycles.

“These are important steps,” said Han, “but we cannot achieve our goals alone. We believe open innovation and collaboration are keys to fighting climate change and protecting our environment.” With this in mind, Samsung announced that its eco-conscious technologies like the SolarCell Remote will be made open source, so that others can utilize them for their new devices too.

Samsung’s decision to make such technologies openly available reflects a commitment to innovation – and to everyday sustainability – that transcends industries. The collaboration with Patagonia that Samsung announced at the keynote demonstrates the type of innovation that can result when companies – even those from entirely different industries – come together to address environmental issues. The innovative solution that the companies are designing will help fight plastic pollution by enabling Samsung washing machines to minimize microplastics from entering waterways through laundry cycles.

“This is a serious problem, and not one we can solve on our own,” said Vincent Stanley, Director of Philosophy at Patagonia. Commending the hard work and dedication of Samsung engineers, Stanley described the working relationship as “a perfect example of the kind of collaboration we all need to help turn the tide of climate change and restore nature to health.”

“We are thrilled about this collaboration, but our work won’t stop there,” added Han. “We will continue to explore new partnerships and collaborations, aiming to address the challenges facing our planet.”

Empowering Users With Customized Experiences 

In addition to describing steps it is taking to advance everyday sustainability, Samsung outlined various ways it is advancing technology to cater to consumers’ diverse needs. Understanding that each person is unique and wants to customize their devices to suit their lifestyle, Samsung strives to find ways to help people redefine their relationships with everyday technologies. This people-first approach to innovation is a key pillar of the company’s “Together for tomorrow” vision.

The platforms and screens that Samsung unveiled at the event reflect the ‘Screens Everywhere, Screens for All’ era that Han alluded to at CES 2020. The Freestyle is a lightweight and portable screen that gives you a cinema-quality experience no matter where you are. Featuring AI-enabled sound, built-in streaming apps and a host of useful Smart TV accessibility features, The Freestyle can be set up virtually anywhere and projects up to 100 inches.

The Samsung Gaming Hub, meanwhile, offers an all-in-one platform for discovering and playing cloud and console games, and is set to launch on the company’s 2022 Smart TVs and monitors. Lastly, The Odyssey Ark is a 55-inch, flexible and curved gaming screen that takes immersion to the next level with a multi-view experience that allows users to play games, video chat with friends and watch gaming videos at the same time.

To introduce more tailored product experiences to consumers’ homes, Samsung announced the rollout of even more customization options for its Bespoke lineup of home appliances. This includes new Bespoke options for Samsung’s Family Hub and French 3-Door and 4-Door refrigerators, alongside dishwashers, ranges and over-the-range microwaves. Samsung is also introducing new products like the Bespoke Jet vacuum and Bespoke Washer and Dryer, expanding the lineup to every room in the home to offer consumers more ways to customize their space to suit their style and needs.

Samsung is constantly exploring ways to harness customization to help users get more out of their devices. The #YouMake Project represents the culmination of those efforts empowering consumers to choose and customize products based on what matters most to them, so they can enjoy a more personalized experience across their devices. Announced at the keynote, the initiative expands Samsung’s Bespoke vision beyond home appliances and brings it to life in the company’s smartphones and large-screen devices.

Ushering in an Era of Seamless Connectivity

Building a better future together for tomorrow requires more than building customization and sustainability into the core of Samsung’s products – it also requires seamless connectivity. During the keynote, Samsung demonstrated its commitment to ushering in an era of truly seamless connected experiences by highlighting its collaborations with partners as well as its next-gen products.

Unveiled for the first time at CES, the all-new Samsung Home Hub takes connected home experiences to the next level with a SmartThings service that integrates with AI-connected appliances to simplify home management. Samsung Home Hub combines six SmartThings services into one convenient device that gives users complete control over their smart home and makes it easier to manage household chores.

To enable different types of smart devices to work better with each other, Samsung announced plans to make SmartThings Hub a built-in feature of its 2022 TVs, Smart Monitors and Family Hub refrigerators. Doing so will help make connected living experiences more accessible and seamless for everyone.

Pointing to the need to offer consumers the best smart home experience regardless of brand, Samsung also announced its role as a founding member of the Home Connectivity Alliance (HCA), which brings together various smart home appliance manufacturers. The organization aims to foster greater interoperability between devices across brands to give consumers more choice, and to enhance the security and safety of products and services.

“As a global coalition of smart home appliance manufacturers, HCA members share a belief that connected ecosystems and digital technology will allow us to further develop product experiences that are elegant, hyper-personalized and truly smart for our consumers,” said Katherine Shin, Vice President of Customer Experience at Trane Technologies. “The HCA invites any global manufacturers with a similar vision for efficiency, interoperability and innovation to come and build with us.”

Samsung’s keynote underlined a deep commitment to corporate social responsibility that continues to characterize its approach to innovation. That commitment is not only realized in the company’s technologies, but also in its dedication towards programs that empower the next generation to bring about the changes they want to see in the world. By nurturing young people’s development and building skills for the workplaces of tomorrow, programs like Solve for Tomorrow and Samsung Innovation Campus are turning dreams into action.

“Today, I’m honored to share that Samsung’s programs to empower the next generation have now reached more than 21 million people since 2012,” said Han. “This is the better tomorrow we all seek: enabling people to reach beyond their dreams, a planet protected so others can experience its wonders, [and] innovation as the spark for change.”

For more information, including images and videos of the products Samsung is announcing at CES 2022, please visit news.samsung.com/global/ces-2022.

¹ For radio frequency harvesting, a physical proximity of SolarCell Remote to a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi router is required.

² Estimate is based on expected sales volume and average usage period of related products.