Samsung SmartThings API monetization

Samsung will charge a $4.99 per-month subscription for access to the SmartThings API, the software interface used to control devices on its smart-home platform & read their states, which third-party controllers such as Home Assistant rely on; owners who manage their Samsung appliances through those controllers will have to pay the recurring fee or lose that control. Samsung announced the change on June 23, 2026, saying it was targeting October 2026 for the new tiers & would not phase out free access before then; the fee does not affect people who control their devices through the SmartThings app, only direct, programmatic access, where software streams device data & sends commands through Samsung's servers. Home Assistant's documentation states that free access will be phased out starting in October 2026 & tells users to subscribe to the Personal Plan, Samsung's name for the non-commercial tier, or migrate their devices off the integration before then; the integration's IoT class is Cloud Push, Home Assistant's label for an integration that works through the vendor's cloud & requires an active internet connection.

Background

Samsung set out the change in a SmartThings blog post titled A New Enhanced SmartThings API Experience. The company said it would add dedicated paid commercial API tiers for business customers alongside a $4.99-per-month plan for non-commercial individual developers, moving the platform away from free API access. Samsung said commercial partners use the API to power short-term rental platforms, energy management systems, API aggregators, & custom dashboards, while individual developers use it for their personal smart homes; the industries it named for the commercial tiers include hospitality, telecommunications, security, senior care, & insurance. Samsung put the SmartThings user base at more than 460 million registered users; a Samsung newsroom release four days before the announcement stated that the figure "is based on the global registered users as of May 2026".

Samsung's announcement said it would introduce "dedicated, paid commercial API tiers as well as a $4.99 a month plan for non-commercial, individual developers."

Developer access before the announcement

On January 7, 2024, the SmartThings Developer Center landing page invited developers to "integrate with SmartThings and innovate alongside thousands of Samsung products and partner devices". A capture on June 6, 2026 led with "Build Connected Experiences for Millions of Users" over a "Get Started" button. The Get Started documentation closed with the same instruction on February 24, 2024 & on May 15, 2026: "sign up for a Samsung account and register as a SmartThings Developer to start building!"

The SmartThings Developer Center landing page led with "Build Connected Experiences for Millions of Users" above a "Get Started" button.

The quick start guide, as captured May 15, 2026, listed everything a developer needed to begin exploring the API: "A token for authentication" & "A method to send HTTPS requests (curl, postman, etc)". It recommended a Personal Access Token, or PAT, for "initial exploration, running personal scripts, or early testing", with OAuth 2.0, the "standard, secure method" that "allows your users to grant your service permission to access their SmartThings data", required for production integrations. The rate-limit page in force the same day set the Device APIs' throughput at "12 requests per minute" & described the consequence of exceeding a limit as a standard "HTTP 429 (Too Many Requests)" error response.

Between the February 24, 2024 & May 15, 2026 versions of the authorization documentation, the stated lifetime of a PAT fell from "valid for 50 years from the creation date" to "valid for 24 hours from the creation date", with a note dating the change to tokens created before December 30, 2024. By May 15, 2026, the documentation pages also carried a site-wide banner reading "Help shape the future of the SmartThings API" with a "Take the survey" link.

Developer terms of service

The SmartThings Developer Center Terms and Conditions in force at the announcement, effective September 24, 2025, license "application programming interface (API) endpoints" to developers as part of the agreement's "Accessed Developer Tools". The agreement's preamble states, in capitals:

SAMSUNG MAY REVISE THIS AGREEMENT, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY OPERATING RULES, POLICIES AND PROCEDURES, AT ANY TIME AND WITHOUT ANY PRIOR NOTICE, BY UPDATING THIS POSTING.

The SmartThings Developer Center Terms and Conditions, effective September 24, 2025, state that "SAMSUNG MAY REVISE THIS AGREEMENT, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY OPERATING RULES, POLICIES AND PROCEDURES, AT ANY TIME AND WITHOUT ANY PRIOR NOTICE, BY UPDATING THIS POSTING."

Its termination clause reads:

Samsung may, at its sole discretion, suspend or terminate Licensee's access to or use of SmartThings Developer Tools and/or terminate this Agreement, at any time, for any reason or no reason, with or without notice, and without any liability to Licensee arising from such suspension or termination.

Samsung announced the paid tiers without amending these terms: the version served on July 27, 2026, more than a month after the announcement, matches the May 15, 2026 pre-announcement snapshot word for word.

API paywall

Devices reached through the API

Samsung's announcement describes the paid plans as covering continued access to its "multi-protocol ecosystem (Matter, Cloud-to-Cloud, Zigbee, Z-Wave)" & to "Samsung devices such as TVs, smart refrigerators, and more" with device states, controls, & health parameters. The API reference states that the Devices API lets an integration "control Devices connected to the SmartThings Platform, access Device metadata, and access Device states".

The SmartThings API reference states that "The Devices API allows you to control Devices connected to the SmartThings Platform, access Device metadata, and access Device states."

Samsung TVs "Q60 or above, released after 2022" include a built-in SmartThings hub supporting Matter, Thread & Zigbee. Samsung's SmartThings features page groups its first-party hardware into mobile devices, TVs & monitors, refrigerators, washers & dryers, & robot vacuum cleaners, with voice control of its Jet Bot robot vacuums & device control on certain air conditioners & air purifiers manufactured in 2024 or later. A November 12, 2024 Samsung newsroom post names the hub hardware behind those networks: the SmartThings 2018 (V3) hub, the Aeotec Smart Home Hub, SmartThings Station, & hubs built into Samsung smart TVs, smart monitors, Family Hub refrigerators, & soundbars.

Third-party hardware certified under the Works with SmartThings program runs through the same platform: Samsung's partner pages name brands including Philips Hue, Google Nest, Eve, & Aqara, & its supported-devices catalogue lists August, Ring, & Arlo among its door lock, doorbell, & camera classes. Home Assistant's integration maps SmartThings capabilities to entities covering climate, locks, lights, media players, sensors, switches, vacuums, & water heaters.

Impact on third-party integrations

Home Assistant's documentation labels the change an "Upcoming breaking API change" & names the alternative to subscribing: migrating devices such as local Zigbee & Z-Wave hardware off the integration before October 2026 to avoid a service disruption.

Home Assistant's SmartThings integration page carries a warning headed "Upcoming breaking API change (October 2026)" telling users to subscribe to Samsung's Personal Plan or migrate their devices before October 2026.

When Matter Alpha covered the change on June 27, 2026, Home Assistant's opt-in analytics showed the SmartThings integration on about 9.8% of the active installations that report telemetry; by July 27, 2026, Home Assistant's integration page put the share at 10%. Home Assistant's analytics site reported 658,077 active installations & estimates that "less than a fourth" of all users opt in to reporting; since the analytics are opt-in & only a portion of users share telemetry, Matter Alpha estimates the integration is installed on roughly 200,000 setups.

Matter Alpha reported that Samsung appliances supporting Matter "currently cannot be commissioned directly into Home Assistant"; instead, "SmartThings remains the Matter controller, making Samsung's cloud services the only integration path". For future purchases, the outlet advised readers to check an integration's IoT class before buying & to prefer "Local Push" hardware, because those "devices continue working without cloud services".

Timeline

• June 23, 2026: Samsung announced the new paid API tiers & the individual-developer Personal Plan.
• Through Q3 2026: API access remains free.
• July 1, 2026: The SmartThings API team explained why the plan does not include a free tier for programmatic access.
• July 6, 2026: The official SmartThings account posted a follow-up on Samsung's community forum clarifying what the paid tier covers.
• October 2026: Samsung's stated target for the paid tiers to become available; the company says it will not phase out free access or apply new usage limits before then.

Samsung's response

On July 1, 2026, the SmartThings API team addressed the omission of a free tier for programmatic access, in a statement reported by Matter Alpha:

The SmartThings app and developing device integrations in the Developer Center remain free. For direct, programmatic API access, where someone can stream device data, control devices, and build a service on the platform, we introduced a $4.99 personal plan rather than a free tier, because a sustainable free tier would require limits restrictive enough to break the always-on automations individual developers value most.

On July 6, 2026, the official SmartThings account followed up on the company's community forum, clarifying what falls behind the paywall: the Rules feature remains available through the SmartThings mobile app, PATs, the SmartThings CLI, its command-line developer tool, & AWA, which the post describes as a first party client, "but will not be free via OAuth". The post states that commands associated with "creating and managing cloud API Access Apps" will require a paid tier, while core CLI tasks, "device profile creation, edge driver packaging, and Works with SmartThings certification", remain free.

In the announcement, Samsung said the transition to a "structured API model" would let it "invest heavily in the enterprise-grade features our partners and users have been asking for". Engadget reported that the company had not released concrete details of those features beyond saying it is working on new integrations & expanded capabilities.

Consumer response

Paulus Schoutsen, who founded Home Assistant & leads the Open Home Foundation, placed the fee in a recurring series he titles How users don't own cloud-powered products. Matter Alpha wrote that when an integration depends on a vendor's cloud, its long-term availability depends on the vendor rather than on the hardware sitting in the owner's home. The Open Home Foundation told its users that the SmartThings integration would fall under Samsung's new personal plans & criticized the pricing. Schoutsen wrote:

We're all for choice, but feel very disappointed that users will have to decide whether to shell out for access in the shadow of yet another cloud paywall.

Engadget quoted the same remark in its coverage of the change. Schoutsen told readers they did not need to act immediately, relaying SmartThings' statement that access would remain free & uninterrupted until October.

Joost Lekkerkerker, the primary maintainer of Home Assistant's SmartThings integration, told Matter Alpha that Matter has yet to become common across the appliance market & said he "loves Matter because you can't be rug pulled". The foundation said it would "continue to advocate for local control that doesn't cost you money".

On June 30, 2026, a Home Assistant custom integration named LocalThings was created on GitHub, offering "local control of newer-generation Samsung connected appliances" with "No cloud round-trip". Its documentation notes that the appliance itself "still maintains its own connection to Samsung", a device-side firmware behavior the integration does not control.

See also

• Samsung