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.

Samsung Electronics held its annual Samsung Developer Conference (SDC) today in San Francisco, bringing together developers, creators and designers to explore seamless, connected experiences powered by Samsung.

During the event, Samsung shared more about its commitment to creating simplified, game-changing customer experiences, including the company’s updated vision for SmartThings as it evolves from a connectivity platform to an enabler of smarter lifestyles. From deeper integration with Bixby to seamless connectivity with Matter-compatible devices, SmartThings is creating a richer, more open world that empowers all users to streamline their connections and their daily lives.

“At Samsung, we continuously innovate our devices, platforms and services to be simpler and more convenient. I am proud to share the next generation of our work, like SmartThings, to further our collaboration with partners and developers,” said Jong-Hee (JH) Han, Vice Chairman, CEO and Head of Device eXperience (DX) Division at Samsung Electronics. “As technologies become more complex, we will always search for ways to make life easier, more connected, and more flexible, so our consumers can focus on what matters most.”

Connecting Platforms and Devices With Calm Technology

Samsung’s vision of seamless connectivity is inspired by the philosophy of Calm Technology — where devices instantly work together, so consumers can save time on setup and get right into the experience. To realize this vision, Samsung reimagined SmartThings and its connected services and partnerships, including Samsung’s Hub Everywhere, extending its capabilities to the entire smart home with audio and visual data as well as SmartThings Energy, SmartThings Pet and SmartThings Cooking. Samsung also partnered with Philips Hue to integrate Philips Hue Sync right into Galaxy devices so smart home lighting can match with music.

The seamless experience will extend beyond Samsung’s ecosystem through SmartThings’ integration with Matter and Samsung’s membership in the Home Connectivity Alliance. Google and Samsung have worked together to enable users to find and link their devices across platforms by building multi-admin feature on Matter devices. The collaboration will bring more devices and users into the connected home in the future.

Bixby has been integrated more deeply with SmartThings, a tool for developers to build more intelligent voice user interface experiences. As Samsung’s representative voice assistant platform, Bixby has evolved to become the on-device AI solution able to control individual Galaxy devices, as well as the cross-device experience throughout the Samsung ecosystem. With the new Bixby Home Studio, developers can now build differentiated, customized experiences for the SmartThings platform. In addition, Bixby will be even more widely available to users with support for Latin American Spanish, starting in November.

As the smart home is becoming more advanced, Samsung is introducing a new security paradigm, enabling Samsung devices to protect each other. Samsung Knox Matrix^[1] is a private blockchain based platform that turns eligible Samsung devices into a shield to protect users’ entire device ecosystem — from Galaxy devices to TVs and home appliances. Plus, users can customize personal privacy settings with the new Security and privacy dashboard, which scans for vulnerabilities, recommends security updates and gives users data management options to keep privacy and security top of mind.

Personalized Services for Better Experiences

In the past year, Samsung TV Plus — Samsung’s free, ad-supported streaming TV and video (FAST) platform available on Samsung Smart TV^[2] and mobile devices — reached 100% growth in viewership,^[3] and projects three billion hours streamed by the end of the year. To build on this momentum, Samsung TV Plus has expanded its offering by adding partnerships with Lionsgate and Vice Media, providing 8K video on demand. Samsung TV Plus has also gone through a redesign, to reflect its extraordinary variety of content with more than 1,600 channels across 24 countries. Samsung TV Plus is the premium choice for a seamless ad experience, where stream stitching makes ad playback simpler than ever.

After 10 years of service, Samsung’s Tizen operating system (OS) continues to offer best-in-class user experiences. The Samsung Gaming Hub brings better, faster and more convenient access to gaming on Samsung Smart TVs, provided by industry-leading partners, such as Xbox, NVIDIA GeForce NOW, Utomik and Amazon Luna. Samsung Gaming Hub bridges expertise in hardware and software to integrate features like AI Upscaling and multitask functions to make gaming on Samsung Smart TVs an immersive, optimized experience.

Tizen OS is also expanding to offer NFTs support with partners like Art Token, laCollection and Nifty Gateway. For B2B customers and developers, Samsung is providing B2B APIs specific to industries and use cases like Syncplay, which allows content to be synchronized and played in multiple signages. Tizen is also introducing SALT, a new content conversion solution to display the highest-quality HDR10+ content on supported TVs.

Your Galaxy, Your Way With One UI 5

By introducing the new One UI 5, Samsung has empowered users to easily customize their device’s look and feel, while enhancing productivity and providing amazing experiences across devices and platforms. One UI 5 brings more personalized experiences with custom-built Modes and Routines, and a Dynamic Lock screen that displays multiple visuals on your phone, your Galaxy Watch and other One UI 5 devices. With the new Bixby Text Call feature, Bixby Voice will answer calls on your behalf and share typed messages with the caller, speaking aloud as if you had answered. One UI 5 also introduces new daily health solutions to help track health and wellness in one place. This includes the Samsung Privileged Health SDK, which enables developers to build apps that leverage the BioActive Sensor on the Galaxy Watch.^[4]

Future-Forward Investment and Research

Samsung Research is looking beyond today’s horizon to innovate for a better tomorrow, full of relentless innovation and open collaboration. Samsung Research is making its robot arm manipulation code available on GitHub, enabling academics, researchers and developers to examine new ideas in robotic manipulation.

The team at Samsung Research was also inspired by the new wellness features Samsung has introduced, particularly on the Galaxy Watch5. To find new use-cases leveraging these features, Samsung Research is working with universities and healthcare institutions that will explore areas like heart health, stress, blood pressure, lung health and neuroscience. As a result, Samsung is offering a full stack SDK — the Samsung Health Stack — which will jumpstart research into important health fields and spark new development.

Samsung invites developers, creators, partners and more to join in on its commitment to open collaboration and seamless experiences. For more information about the Samsung Developer Conference (SDC) 2022, please visit developer.samsung.com.

^[1] Starting as early as late 2023, Samsung Knox Matrix will be initially available on selected Samsung devices. Support for other manufacturers’ products will follow later.

^[2] Samsung TV Plus is available for selected Samsung Smart TVs only.

^[3] Viewership from September 2021 to August 2022 compared to viewership from September 2020 to August 2021

^[4] Available on Galaxy Watch4 series and Galaxy Watch5 series.