Along with its latest and much-awaited flagships, the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus, Samsung introduced its new smart home solution, the Connect Home WiFi mesh router that doubles as a hub that helps you manage all your WiFi enabled appliances that support SmartThings and of course, Samsung devices. The hub will be released in two editions, the Connect Home and the Connect Home Pro.
Back in 2014, Samsung bagged SmartThings, a technology company out of Palo Alto that deals with home automation solutions. SmartThings provided a hub to manage and control all WiFi-connected smart devices in the crib through a single app. Samsung’s move was clearly a step towards the smart home sector and with Connect Home, it looks like Samsung is making headway amid competition from Google, Luma, and Eero.
Key highlights
Connect Home has a built-in SmartThings hub onboard that helps the device connect to smart devices through WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1, Z-wave or Zigbee thereby enabling you to manage devices from 3rd party makers such as Philips Hue lights and Smart TVs through a mobile app.
Samsung Connect is only available for the just released Galaxy S8 (Samsung via YouTube)
Connect Home, being a WiFi mesh router, will be sold in a pack of three. Mesh routers seem like the right choice from Samsung for a smart home network as one of the routers actually transmits the signal while the others can broaden and strengthen the signal range throughout the home. Each base will have a supposed range of 1,500 square feet.
Full features
As far as the design is concerned, the curved edges of a square frame with a gleaming white finish seem to be a bit too inspired from the Connect Home’s main contender in mesh networking, Eero. The Connect Home supports up to 866 Mbps speeds and will be powered by a 710 MHz quad-core processor run by a 512MB RAM and an internal storage of 4GB. The Connect Home Pro is run on a nimbler 1.7GHz dual-core chipset that supports speeds of up to 1.7Gbps.
Connect Home and Home Pro, both has two ethernet ports on the rear along with a power pin. As of now, no price details are made available to them both and it’d be much easier to choose from the two, once the prices are made available. Also, being a SmartThings product that competes with major league players like Google, Linksys, and Netgear, the Connect Home routers is not expected to come cheap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=890M6nLhmbU
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