Samsung SmartThings Now Adds Smarter Home Controls and Better Offline Support

Smart homes promise convenience, but the experience can feel strangely fragile when an internet connection becomes unreliable. A light switch that should respond instantly can take several seconds. A routine that seemed effortless yesterday suddenly needs troubleshooting. Samsung's latest SmartThings update addresses part of that problem while also making the app more proactive about what users might want to do next.

Announced globally on October 6, 2026, the update introduces SmartThings Now, redesigns the Home tab and expands local control between a phone and a compatible SmartThings hub. Samsung also says the platform now supports Matter 1.6, bringing additional device categories into its connected-home ecosystem. These are software and platform changes, not a new Galaxy phone or a new smart-home hub for sale.

SmartThings Now puts useful actions at the top

The new SmartThings Now area appears as contextual cards at the top of the Home tab. Instead of requiring users to dig through devices, services and routines, it is designed to bring timely suggestions closer to the surface.

Samsung gives a few concrete examples. When a user approaches a home location already registered in SmartThings, a card may suggest switching on the lights or an air purifier. After the user takes that action, the app can suggest turning it into an automation. A Family Care card may also appear if a participating family member has shown no device activity for an extended period, giving a caregiver options to check in or call.

These examples help explain the idea, but they should not be read as a promise that every household will see every card. A useful suggestion depends on the services, devices, permissions and routines actually configured in the home. Someone with a single connected light will have a different experience from someone managing a hub, appliances and family-care settings.

SmartThings Now also looks at the previous week's activity to suggest changes to Favorites. Frequently used devices or routines can be surfaced, while less relevant ones can be removed from the prominent area. Routine Insight provides a view of recent automation activity and a way to review routines that may no longer be needed.

The more important change may be local control

For users in the Philippines, where home broadband interruptions and inconsistent connections can be practical concerns, the local-control improvement is arguably the most useful part of this release.

Samsung says a phone and compatible SmartThings hub on the same Wi-Fi network can communicate directly instead of sending every supported control through a remote cloud service. In the company's controlled testing, this approach improved response time by approximately 30% compared with cloud-based control. That figure is Samsung's test result, not an independently measured speed guarantee for every home.

The company also says the app can switch between local and cloud-based control depending on whether the user is at home or away. That distinction matters: direct local communication is not a substitute for all internet-dependent features, and it does not mean every smart device will keep functioning during every outage. The hub, home network and particular device still need to be operating and supported by the local-control path.

According to Samsung's compatibility notes, local control is supported in the SmartThings app on Android and iOS with SmartThings Station, SmartThings V2, V3 and V4 hubs, as well as hub-enabled Samsung smart TVs and Family Hub devices. Users should check the exact hub and device combination before expecting an existing setup to gain the feature.

An updated Offline Device Diagnostics page is intended to make recovery easier after network changes. Samsung says users can update network information across registered devices from the diagnostics flow, potentially avoiding repeated manual fixes when a home Wi-Fi configuration changes. Real-world results will still depend on the devices involved.

Matter 1.6 expands the kinds of devices SmartThings can recognize

The update adds Matter 1.6 support, according to Samsung's global announcement. Matter is a cross-brand smart-home standard intended to reduce the friction of connecting products from different manufacturers. In this release, Samsung highlights four newly supported categories: energy meters, closures for certain doors and gates, irrigation equipment, and soil sensors.

Those categories are particularly interesting because they extend smart-home automation beyond the familiar combination of bulbs, plugs and air conditioners. An energy meter could help show power use, while soil and irrigation sensors point toward garden or outdoor automations. Support for a category, however, is not the same as a guarantee that any product with a similar name will pair successfully. Buyers should still verify Matter certification, version support and SmartThings compatibility for the specific model.

Samsung says the broader SmartThings platform serves 470 million registered users and works with more than 430 brands certified under its Works with SmartThings program. Those are company-reported ecosystem figures, not a count of people actively using SmartThings Now or of Matter 1.6 devices available in the Philippines.

The Home tab is also easier to navigate

Alongside the headline features, Samsung has reorganized dashboards, device cards and service cards into a more compact Home tab. The updated layout is intended to show device states and readings with less scrolling. A Floating Bar places commonly used actions toward the bottom of the screen, where they can be easier to reach on large phones. Live Wallpaper also changes through the day.

Samsung says the redesigned Home tab, including SmartThings Now, is available across supported mobile devices, Samsung smart TVs, Family Hub refrigerators, certain screen-equipped Samsung appliances and Windows devices. The interface and available controls may still differ by product, region and software version.

That cross-device approach matters for households that do not want every interaction to start on a phone. A shared television or appliance screen can become another place to check connected-home status, although it should not be mistaken for universal support on every Samsung screen sold in previous years.

What Philippine users should check before updating

There is no separate hardware price attached to this announcement, and Samsung has not provided a new Philippine MSRP for SmartThings Now. It is a platform update rather than a product launch. We also could not verify a Philippines-specific staged rollout timetable from the global release, so it would be premature to promise that every local account already has the redesigned experience.

If you already use SmartThings, the practical next step is to check for an app update through your phone's official app store, then look at the Home tab and confirm whether SmartThings Now appears. If local control is the main reason you are interested, check your hub model and keep both the phone and hub on the same working Wi-Fi network. Owners of Matter accessories should check the accessory maker's own compatibility and firmware guidance too.

The change is less exciting than a flashy new gadget, but it tackles two everyday weaknesses of smart homes: controls that are hard to find and automations that rely too heavily on an external connection. Whether Samsung's approach makes a noticeable difference will depend on each home's mix of devices, network conditions and supported features.

The bottom line

SmartThings Now is a useful software-first upgrade on paper. The contextual cards could make connected homes less fiddly, and the local-control route has clear appeal when the internet is unstable. The important caveat is compatibility. Samsung's roughly 30% response-time improvement comes from controlled testing, and offline operation is not universal. For Philippine users, this is worth watching and testing on existing hardware before buying anything new.

Source: Samsung Global Newsroom's October 6 announcement.