SmartThings gets smarter with natural language routines

Ahead of Galaxy Unpacked this week, Samsung is announcing several new features coming to its smart home platform, SmartThings, including the ability to create routines using natural language. That means you’ll be able to simply tell SmartThings what you want your smart home to do, and it’ll take care of all the complicated details for you. Samsung also announced updates to its Apple Watch app, a new dark mode for the SmartThings app on iOS, and more features coming to SmartThings Find, its location-tracking service.

One of the barriers to home automation is how complicated and time-consuming it can be to set up automations, especially if you want to do anything even slightly advanced. SmartThings’ latest update is designed to address this with a feature called Routine Creation Assistant.

According to Samsung, this lets you type a phrase describing what you want your home to do in the SmartThings app — like “turn off all the lights whenever I leave the house” — and it will set it up without you needing to configure each device or setting. SmartThings is one of the more powerful home automation platforms, so this should make it easier to tap into its features.

This type of AI-powered automation creation tool is also available in Google Home, through its Gemini integration, and is part of Amazon’s new Alexa Plus. All three platforms claim that the features are powered by large language models and are designed to make it easier to use your smart home, which could potentially spur broader adoption of home automation.

While Google and Amazon’s natural language routine features are still in beta / early access phases, Samsung’s Routine Creation Assistant is apparently available now to users in Korea and the US, on both Android and iOS.

Another update to SmartThings routines is the option to schedule multiple timed steps using a Delay Actions feature. For example, Samsung says, “Users can now create a ‘Good Morning’ routine that turns on bedroom lights at 7:00 a.m., starts the coffee maker 15 minutes later, and opens curtains while playing music after 30 minutes all within a single routine.” This is available now in the SmartThings app.

A new Confirm to Run Actions feature lets you add an extra step to a routine in the form of a notification confirming that you want to run it. This is designed to prevent a routine from triggering when you might not want it to. According to Samsung, “This helps avoid accidental actions in shared households, such as a security mode that is set to activate upon exit, but another family member is still at home.”

The SmartThings app on Apple Watch is getting a new widget that should make controlling devices faster, and an update to the app now lets you switch between locations and control individual devices on your watch. Smart home controls on your wrist can make it faster to do things like unlock the door or turn on the lights while you’re moving around your home without having to pull out your phone.

Samsung also announced that its Virtual Home feature is now live for all users. This lets you play with a smart home without actually having one, so you can see how SmartThings’s capabilities could work in your home or explore how a routine could be improved by adding new devices, without having to buy them first. Virtual Home is accessible now in the SmartThings app.

The SmartThings Find service is getting an upgrade with a new URL sharing option designed to make it easier to rope your friends and family into helping you find lost items. You can now share the location of a Galaxy SmartTag with any internet-connected device just by sending a URL. Samsung says the URL can only be created by a Galaxy phone but can be viewed on any device, including iPhones.

Finally, Samsung is making it simpler to set up your devices in more countries. The company says its Calm Onboarding program is expanding from 14 to 58 countries, and now includes the Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Buds.

If you buy a compatible device directly from Samsung, Calm Onboarding allows SmartThings to “automatically detect, register, and connect the product to the app.” Along with the watch and buds, Samsung says the process works with 2025 Samsung appliances, 2024 TVs, air conditioners, air purifiers, vacuum cleaners, ovens, and Family Hub refrigerators. You need to opt in to the feature by enabling “Add My Device Automatically” in the SmartThings app.

Some of these updates are live now, with others coming soon to the SmartThings app on iOS and Android. We’ve reached out to Samsung to clarify timings.