During this week’s Samsung Developer Conference Keynote, Mark Benson, head of SmartThings, announced that Matter support would be added to the platform this month. Following the keynote, Jung confirmed that Samsung intends to push over-the-air updates to all existing v2 and v3 SmartThings hubs, the SmartThings dongle, and the Android SmartThings app. According to Jung, the software-based SmartThings hubs built into newer Samsung smart TVs, monitors, and Family Hub refrigerators will be upgraded to support Matter at a later date.
While the upgraded hubs will continue to support Zigbee and Z-Wave, they will not be Matter bridges anytime soon. “We don’t yet have a plan to support that function,” Jung says. “SmartThings users can continue to use devices connected to a SmartThings hub, but existing Zigbee and Z-Wave devices will not be exposed to Matter.”