Samsung to Charge for SmartThings API Access, Impacting Third-Party Integrations

Samsung just announced it's going to start charging for SmartThings API access, which is the company's smart home automation platform.

Most of these changes impact software developers and other commercial partners, but there is a way this could hit regular users in their wallets.

Starting in October, there's going to be a $5 monthly plan for "non-commercial individual developers." This won't impact people using the traditional SmartThings app to control any of the thousands of gadgets that automatically work with the platform. It does, however, apply to those who use third-party tools like Home Assistant to control their Samsung-connected devices.

It'll also likely impact those with custom smart home controls, adding yet another monthly subscription fee to the pile. This seems like a real kick in the pants to the smart home open-source community.

"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," Home Assistant founder Paulus Schoutsen wrote in a blog post.

What are users getting as part of all this? We aren't exactly sure. Samsung says the added funds will allow it to "invest heavily in the enterprise-grade features our partners and users have been asking for." The company hasn't released any concrete details, other than saying that it's working on new integrations and expanded capabilities of some kind. There is a new Developer Center hub coming down the pike, which will provide "current usage and data points to optimize" code.

Again, this starts in October. Access to the SmartThings API remains free for the time being.