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| Credit: Samsung |
South Korean tech giant Samsung has announced a collaboration with Hyundai Motor Group, solidifying a Memorandum of Understanding to enhance the SmartThings smart home platform’s capabilities. The partnership aims to introduce smart home functionalities to Hyundai and Kia vehicles, allowing users to remotely control and monitor their cars from the convenience of their homes.
The joint effort pledges to develop services enabling users to manage car functions such as starting, stopping, and adjusting air-conditioning through the SmartThings platform. This integration extends to electric vehicles (EVs), providing real-time tracking of charging status, battery life, and driving range.
Under the SmartThings ecosystem, these Home-to-Car services will also make fuel-consumption data easily accessible within households. Gesture controls and preset routines, like a “good morning” routine adjusting both home and car settings, are among the planned features.
Conversely, the proposed Car-to-Home services involve integrating SmartThings into cars through “Ready Upgrade,” a technology developed by HARMAN, a Samsung Electronics subsidiary. Ready Upgrade facilitates remote access to thermostat controls, TVs, and other smart home devices directly from the car dashboard. This integration further extends to an energy monitoring system, enabling tracking of energy usage and carbon emissions, with implications for optimizing charging times for EVs.
Samsung and Hyundai view this collaboration as a step toward shaping the future of smart homes and cars. The initiative appears to be Samsung’s strategic move to future-proof the smart home industry, emphasizing the convergence of smart home and smart car technologies. Despite the intriguing concept, the realization of this integration is expected to unfold gradually.
Source: EVMagz