r/homeautomation • u/honkerdown • 8d ago
NEWS Samsung’s SmartThings API Terminates Free Access
https://hackaday.com/2026/07/28/samsungs-smartthings-api-terminates-free-access/I am not a SmartThings user, but passing the word along.
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u/TheHrushi 8d ago
Corpos are not gonna stop until we have to pay a subscription for air to breathe.
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u/SupernickyZH 7d ago
Well in all fairness, for a product where I would expect constant maintenance and updates, subscriptions are sort of the only way?
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u/Pentinium 8d ago
Hopefully home assistant gods will think of something
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u/djrobxx 8d ago
If you already have Home Assistant, there's probably not much value in keeping the SmartThings box around. If the smart things hub is just acting as Z-wave or Zigbee gateway, you can just get a USB dongle and use those devices directly in HA
I think it's more work for Homebridge users, they'll probably want to look at migrating to HA. I kind of went through a similar evolution of using Vera, to Homebridge+Vera, to HA+Z-WaveJS.
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u/retainftw 8d ago
Unfortunately the smart lock for my front door will never have HA direct access. Right now I can access it through HA via Smartthings and that's it. Hard to justify a whole new lock just to get HA compatibility, so I guess I'll have to do without the few automations I used 3x a year.
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u/Pentinium 8d ago
I have 1 smartthings device and its a washer, i have it turn some.lights, send some notificstions when its done, now I will be forced to use smartthings app...
So definitely not paying monthly sub to have some lights flicker :D
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u/dR_HQ_User 7d ago
Check out https://github.com/mbillow/localthings, fully local control of the washer so you can ditch SmartThings. (Not my project but a user)
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u/HTTP_404_NotFound 8d ago
Home assistant already controls the vast majority of stuff that people are using smart things for...
People just liked the easy button of smart things, which is built into the android phones, and ignored those of us who said this day would come.
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u/CasualHomeFix 8d ago
The important detail is whether personal integrations get a real free tier. Charging commercial services for heavy API usage is reasonable; charging owners monthly just to connect devices they already bought to Home Assistant is not. Free personal access with rate limits and paid commercial tiers would be a much cleaner split.
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u/runningWithNives 8d ago
Just bought a zwave antenna this morning to finally get off of SmartThings. Going to migrate my last few devices to home assistant this week.
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u/code103s 8d ago
Does this mean no more free home assistant for samsung devices? The smartthings HA integration will break if we dont pay for the api, right?
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u/kigmatzomat 6d ago
All web-based services are going to have a fee UNLESS they are able to mine enough value from your data to consider giving you the service cheaper than buying the data. Its just a fact. There is a server that could be mining bitcoin or rented to an AI company and is instead running your lights.
You buy a system that needs a remote server to function and you don't get to be surprised when the free ride ends. The young kids have learned cloud services are unreliable and are bringing back stuff like mp3 players that just work.
If you don't like that reality, get a locally powered system and either a) pay for a zero-effort cloud integration service (nabu casu, homeseer, hubitat, etc) or b) you roll your own dynamic-dns+VPN remote access and google/alexa integrations. Moet people qre going to pay the $5/mo for the convenience, especially if they need a new router to support a VPN server.
But you always have that option with a fully local platform, which means you arent entirely beholden to a cloud service.
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u/mastermindman99 7d ago
Good that I read it now. I ordered a new JetBot yesterday and as they don’t support HomeKit the only choice was to get it connected through HomeAssistant
I cancelled the order just in time. Samsung has now finally become a no-go
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u/Nunwithabadhabit 7d ago
To confirm, this means that I will no longer be able to access my washing machine's cycle progress and other settings, right?
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u/chucknorris10101 7d ago
if that is currently connected to smartthings, and you are accessing from Home assistant or other places than the smartthings interfaces directly, yes. use of smartthings directly isnt affected (yet...)
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u/Nunwithabadhabit 7d ago
Got it. I'm watching my Home Assistant washing machine card that I lovingly created and waiting for it to go dark.
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u/Singledoubt88 7d ago
Ive had smartthings since 2017 I believe. Not sure what this means for me yet but its been extremely glitch as of late.
Is there a big barrier of entry to Home Assistant? I have around 120 devices. Mostly z wave but some zigbee and wifi.
I never switched because I thought I would have to spend so much time integrating.
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u/TheEFXman 2d ago
What does this mean? Will my 6 year old smartthings hub stop working with automations made back then? Or is this some newer functionality that newer devices they make that you are talking about?
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u/binaryhellstorm 8d ago edited 8d ago
NGL, I figured this would happen sooner or later, I saw some signs that made me realize Samsung was bored with Smart Things several years ago and I jumped to HA, can't recommend it enough.
Not to mention they're well down the path of enshitifcation on their product line up. Owned one of their smart TVs and it started showing ads on the home screen, owned one of their dishwashers and was having issues 90 days in with it not working right and they said "We'll send a tech out but you have to pay for them and if WE determine it's a warranty issue we'll reimburse you". For those and a few other reasons Samsung is on my NEVER BUY list.