Can Your Smart Hub Do It? Samsung’s $59 SmartThings Station puts innovation where it counts

Samsung has an untapped gold mine with SmartThings, and the company is now focusing on its home products more than ever. This is evident from the inclusion of smart home platforms in a variety of devices, such as Family Hub Refrigerator and Samsung TVs, via a dongle.

New smartthings station is the latest device to join your smart home lineup — and it does a lot more than just connect to your home gadgets.

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smartthings station is a $59 device that acts like a regular smart home hub, but it’s also a wireless charger (if you pay an additional $20), a button for smart home devices and scenes/automation, and a scanner for SmartThings Find, Samsung’s network for locating Galaxy devices.

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samsung smartthings station

The perfect multipurpose SmartThings hub and wireless charger for Galaxy phone users.

As a smart home hub, the SmartThings Station has Wi-Fi connectivity (no Ethernet port) and supports Matter, Thread, Bluetooth, and Zigbee. Unfortunately, the new station doesn’t support Z-Wave, though Aeotek SmartThings HubWhich does, is still available for sale.

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When you unbox the SmartThings Station, available in black or white, you’ll notice what a small device it is, allowing it to blend in nicely on your nightstand, kitchen or living room table. It is not as bulky as other hubs and base stations. Setup was easy for me on both iOS and Android, though some features are exclusive to Samsung Galaxy phones, like super fast charging.

The buttons on the SmartThings Station can be customized in the SmartThings app to perform different actions depending on whether you tap, double-tap, or hold. For example, if you double-tap it, the device can ring your phone when you lose it. And you can set it up to run routines with a single press, like turning off a set of lights.

Why didn’t anyone think of this?

Multipurpose smart home hubs are the norm among the big players. have apples HomePod, HomePod mini and Apple TV 4K Devices that double as hubs for HomeKit, Amazon has Echo speakers and Echo Show to use with Alexa and Google Nest Speaker and Nest Hub Support Google Home.

SmartThings, one of the longest running smart home platforms, has had standalone hubs for years; But it wasn’t until Samsung shifted its focus to creating a more accessible smart home that it began adding hub capabilities to its fridges and TVs.

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Now, the SmartThings Station is joining its competitors by introducing a range of additional functionality. The main one, wireless charging, supports super fast charging for compatible Samsung devices, though it’s been slow to charge my iPhone.

One of my favorite features of the Smart Hub is its ability to trigger automations just by setting your phone on top of it. As someone who likes a good wireless charger on my nightstand, I love placing my phone on the SmartThings station when I’m ready for bed and taking action to instantly turn off my bedside lamps, outside floodlights, and more. I do and close all my doors.

Using Matter with the SmartThings Station

In my opinion, the biggest feature of the SmartThings Station is its support for Matter. Part of the problem of interoperability with smart homes has long been opening a separate app for each brand of product involved.

For example, when I’m ready for bed, I open the HomeKit app to make sure all my locks are on and the lights are off, open Eufy Security to arm the security system, ask Siri for Bedside Ask to turn off the lamps, and then ask Alexa to turn off the backyard lamps. This is streamlined to an extent with Homebridge, a smart home system on the Raspberry Pi that bridges the gap between incompatible brands.

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But with Native Matter support, there is no need for any third party goods and services. You control all your Matter-enabled devices directly from the SmartThings app, which is great.

Why choose SmartThings Systems

Samsung’s SmartThings is arguably the best smart home automation system out there — and I say this as an iPhone and HomeKit user up to my neck in the Apple ecosystem. SmartThings has the widest range of interoperability among smart home brands, from Philips Hue to Arlo, and whether you’re a newbie or a seasoned smart home user, the app itself is easy to set up and extremely intuitive.

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There’s also an argument to be made for Google’s Home Assistant, which is probably the most customizable smart home automation system available. But Samsung’s SmartThings fits easily into any Samsung user’s home, which isn’t unusual considering all the devices the company makes.

smartthings station is a simple yet versatile tool, and the perfect introduction to the SmartThings ecosystem, especially for those samsung galaxy phone, In my testing, I found that other smartphone brands, like my iPhone, took significantly longer than the Galaxy phone to reach a full charge with the wireless pad on, but the feature itself is a plus.

Thanks to how versatile the SmartThings Station is, how easy it is to set up and navigate the system, and how many compatible devices it has on the market, I’ll be keeping the SmartThings ecosystem running in my home for the foreseeable future.