SmartThings Inc. is an American

home automation Home automation or domotics is building automation for a home, called a smart home or smart house. A home automation system will monitor and/or control home attributes such as lighting, climate, entertainment systems, and appliances. It m ...

company headquartered in

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it has a population of 82,376. Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is t ...

with a

software development Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invo ...

center in

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origi ...

. Founded in 2012, it focuses on the development of eponymous automation software and an associated array of client applications and cloud platforms for smart homes and the consumer

Internet of things The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other com ...

. Since August 2014 SmartThings has been a subsidiary of

Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (, sometimes shortened to SEC and stylized as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, South Korea. It is the pinnacle of the Samsung chaebol, acc ...

. SmartThings cites its platform as having 62 million active users, a number it claims increased 70% through 2019 and 2020.

History

SmartThings was conceived by co-founder and once-CEO Alex Hawkinson in the winter of 2011. Hawkinson tells that his family's unoccupied mountain house in

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

was extensively damaged by water pipes that first froze and subsequently burst resulting in some $80,000 worth of damage. Hawkinson noted that he could have prevented the damages had he known what was happening inside the house. Through 2011 and 2012, Hawkinson and his SmartThings co-founders worked to build a

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and software programming. A prototype is generally used to ...

of their desired solution to such problems. That prototype would go on to form the basis of a successful

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

campaign which the developers launched in September 2012 and that would go on to secure US$1.2 million in backing, making it the second largest, smart-home focussed crowdfunding project to date. Raising $3 million in a December 2012 seed funding round, SmartThings would go on to commercially launch its products in August 2013 before raising a further 12.5 million in a

Series A A series A round (also known as series A financing or series A investment) is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exc ...

funding round in late 2013. In August 2014,

announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire SmartThings. The financial terms of the deal were never publicly disclosed but were estimated as high as $200 million by some trade publications at the time.

Products and services

Initially SmartThings produced a suite of custom hardware and software services, including

smart home hub A smart home hub, sometimes also referred to as a "smart hub", "gateway'", "bridge", "controller" or "coordinator", is a control center/centre for a smart home, and enables the components of a smart home to communicate and respond to each other via ...

s and sensors. In June 2020, SmartThings' engineering head Mark Benson announced that SmartThings would pivot away from manufacturing its own hardware and instead focus on software. The company hopes to enlist other companies to manufacture and distribute SmartThings hardware. In October 2020, SmartThings announced that

Aeotec Aeotec Group GmbH is a home automation and electronics company based in Hamburg, Germany and is known as Aeotec. It had previously been known as Aeon Labs and had been headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. It was founded in 2016. It ...

will take over its European hardware line. In December 2020, Aeotec revealed that it would also manage the SmartThings hardware portfolio throughout Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As of February 2021, SmartThings develops software and cloud services.

References

External links

Official Website
{{Samsung Electronics Smart home hubs American companies established in 2012 Companies based in Mountain View, California Samsung Electronics American subsidiaries of foreign companies Internet of things companies Kickstarter-funded products IOS software Android (operating system) software Windows Phone software WatchOS software 2014 mergers and acquisitions