Most of the home-automation kits available in the market today work on three major communication protocol – IP(Wi-Fi), ZigBee and Z-Wave. As a result, with so many manufacturers having devices under these three protocols, it becomes easy to have cross-compatibility of devices across brands.
Samsung, similarly has its own home-automation kit called SmartThings which supports all these three protocols. The kit consists of various sensing units and a central controlling unit called as the SmartThings Hub.
Below is a quick guide for getting started with SmartThings.
NOTE: Before getting started, we recommend you that keep all your catalogues and printed documents you get with the kit. Misplacing them might lead you to loose some important information like Welcome Code that can cause a pain in case if it is lost.
Sign Up for the new Account
Step 1: Download and Install the SmartThings mobile app on your Android/iOS and Windows Phone devices.
Step 2: Click on Sign Up. Enter your full name and email address. Confirm your email and set your password(minimum 8 characters with at least one number and one character). Click on Create Account.
Getting started with SmartThings Hub setup
Follow all the instructions of the app to connect the SmartThings Hub as follows:
Step 1: Select your region – US, Canada and UK. Enter the 6 digit Welcome Code and click on Next. The Welcome Code is required for activating the Hub and so make sure you have the power and Ethernet cable plugged in before hand.
Step 2: Now wait for the Hub to download all the essential firmware updates. Make sure you do not unplug the Hub during setup. When the Hub LED light turns solid green, you will get a confirmation message on the app and it is OK to proceed. Click on Next.
You will then be navigated to setup your home location.
Creating a Location
Step 1: Tap to give your home a name while the default is “Home”. Tap to set where your home is located on the Map.
Step 2: Click on Allow to let SmartThings app gain permission to access your phone’s GPS co-ordinates. By this, SmartThings will automatically trigger actions during the times you enter or leave your home.
Step 3: Go through the in-app tips about how to place your location thus setting its geofence. Swipe through the tips and select Get Started.
Step 4: Now try to set your physical location. Here the red pin should try to center your GRP co-ordinates. In case if needed, long press in order to place the pin at the new spot in the map. Else just tap and hold the pin to drag it.
Step 5: Set the geofence. Just tap and drag the black dot if you want to change the size of the geofence surrounding your home. Click on Save and Next.
You will get an message that your Hub is now connected and would be asked to connect Things.
Connecting Things
Just follow the in-app instruction to connect your Hub to the Smart “Things”.
Step 1: On the Hub connected screen, Tap Next. Read the instructions of how to prepare some Smart Things to connect to Hub. After completing it, tap Next.
Step 2: The app says “I’m looking foe new Things” and display a spinning circle. On finding things, the message #Things Found appears and the devices will get listed below.
Step 3: Just tap the device to configure it and name your device. Click Select a Room to assign it to an existing room or Add a Room.
Step 4: Click Next. Follow the in-app instructions to configure the device and once you finish, tap Done.
Once you have started with creating your account, and setting up the SmartThings Hub, its time for you to add other Smart interactive “Things” to your Home-Automation devices and make them work in sync with the Hub. [Read: How to add devices to SmartThings Hub?]