Samsung Buys SmartThings, for $200M: Home Technologies Company Acquired by South Korean Smartphone Maker
SmartThings is a smart home startup that was recently acquired by Samsung. The deal was for $200 million, according to Re/code. SmartThings is about making the home technically responsive and allowing the homeowner to control appliances used every day through the Internet. The process is easy with a kit that homeowners must purchase. The kit includes a hub that resembles a router, which talks to all the devices at home and allows the owner to control these devices through a downloadable smartphone app.
Based on the blog post by SmartThings CEO Alex Hawkinson, the company will still be operating as an independent firm but within the Open Innovation Center group of global company Samsung.
The acquisition is seen as a smart move for Samsung and SmartThings. With the trend today of finding and acquiring companies with symbiotic operations to larger companies, the pairing of Samsung and SmartThings could prove beneficial to each other.
As an example, Nest bought Dropcam in June, which manufactures Wi-Fi cameras for home monitoring. Nest, a smart-home thermostat manufacturer, was bought by Google last January. With the acquisition, SmartThings will have a cushy financial backing for its expansion. South Korea's tech giant Samsung, on the other hand, will solidify its position in the smart home category with the company's latest acquisition.
SmartThings has a growing roster of developers that are producing several unique apps and connected devices. The Open Innovation Center (OIC) of Samsung is responsible for creating and developing the services and software innovation for Samsung Electronics.
SmartThings becoming a part of Samsung's OIC will boost its capability to provide more services and innovation for the home. The company has already created about 8,000 apps and 1,000 devices produced by a community of developers, inventors and device makers using an open platform. Alex Hawkinson sees this as a way to attract more developers and device makers for consumers and further their goal of turning every home into a smart one.
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