This will impact Home Assistant users and those who rely on similar third-party tools.
Samsung has just announced that it’s going to start charging for SmartThings API access, the company’s smart home automation platform. Most of these changes affect software developers and other commercial partners, but one way it could affect regular users is their wallets.
Starting in October, a $5 monthly plan is going to be launched for “non-commercial individual developers.” This won’t affect people who use traditional SmartThings apps to control any of the thousands of gadgets that work automatically with the platform. However, this applies to those who use third-party tools like Home Assistant to control their Samsung-connected devices.
This will likely also affect those with custom smart home controls, adding another monthly subscription fee to the pile. This feels like a real blow to the smart home open-source community.
“We’re all for choice, but are very disappointed that users have to decide whether to pay for access under the shadow of yet another cloud paywall,” Home Assistant founder Paulus Schoutsen wrote in a blog post.
What are users getting as part of all this? We’re not quite sure. Samsung says the additional funding will allow it to “invest heavily in the enterprise-grade features that our partners and users are demanding.” The company hasn’t released any concrete details other than to say that it’s working on new integrations and some kind of expanded capabilities. A new Developer Center hub is coming, which will provide code “to customize current usage and data points.”
Then, it starts in October. Access to the SmartThings API will remain free for the time being.
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