Samsung promises to bring all its smart home appliances connected by 2020

One week before Samsung introduces its latest smart home appliance at the IFA 2017 in Berlin, the company made an announcement promising to get all its home appliance products connected and have a unified control platform by 2020.

By then, all of its home products will function like IoT devices just like Samsung’s artificial intelligence-based smart refrigerator Family Hub 2.0. Such devices, according to the company, will have further connections with other devices and serve as a home hub of the smart home. For instance, users will be able to talk to the fridge to activate the vacuum for house cleaning or to start the washing machine.

Samsung said it will bring technology focus on three core areas: AI and voice recognition, connected platform and cloud stack, to power all of its smart home devices and provide value-added features for its customers.

The company’s smart TV, Family Hub refrigerator and air conditioners are already certified by the Open Connectivity Foundation, a global alliance that set up the first standard IoT specifications in the industry. The company plans to have its washing machine, oven, robot cleaner and air purifier lines of products certified next year.

“Samsung’s aggressive efforts to get OCF certification will encourage others to join the group, expanding the use of the tech standardizations, which will help connect products made by different manufacturers,” said the company in a statement.

To realize unified connectivity, the company plans to further develop the Samsung Connect platform, which allows users to control Samsung’s smart home products via a mobile app. For example, the Connect Home Wi-Fi router, which is Samsung’s first Wi-Fi router, is integrated with the Connect platform and is designed to serve as a smart home control hub. The Connect Home router enables users in the U.S. to control 130 products which support the SmartThings platform.

The Samsung Connect Home has been released in the market. The company will add a web-based interface for users to set up and control router functionalities. The Samsung Connect app is currently the only setup and control interface. The app interface has some limitations compared with the traditional one, the company said.