Samsung launched its flagship Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ smartphones on Wednesday but apart from these devices, the company also launched its Connect Home mesh Wi-Fi routers as well. Importantly, Samsung has added SmartThings integration that makes the Connect Home a SmartThings hub to control compatible gadgets inside homes.
As the Samsung Connect Home will act as a hub for SmartThings, users will not need to buy a separate hub, which was required previously, as pointed by CNET in its report. There is also a Pro version of the device that comes as a single unit, compared with up to three units as in the case of the regular version, and comes with more processing power. The range for Samsung Connect Home is up to 1,500 square feet for each unit and it comes with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of flash memory.
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The device uses 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi standard and comes with Bluetooth 4.1 connectivity as well. The Pro version of Samsung Connect Home is expectedly able to deliver higher speeds than the regular version.
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Even though the puck shaped device would have been useful just as a mesh Wi-Fi router as well, the added functionality to control SmartThings gadgets inside homes adds to the utility of the device and can serve to reduce clutter in homes.
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Samsung has not disclosed the price and availability of the Connect Home devices as of now and we will have to wait to get further details.
Mesh Wi-Fi routers have recently become a trend in tech Industry as Asus and Linksys launched their respective mesh Wi-Fi routers at CES 2017 earlier this year. Asus launched its HiveSpot and HiveDot routers while Linksys launched Velop mesh Wi-Fi router. Separately, Google has already announced its plans to bring its Google Wifi router to the UK next month.
In this week's episode of Orbital, we talk about whether the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ can be the smash hits Samsung needs. You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or RSS, or just hit the play button below.
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