SmartThings Finally Talks to Its Own Hub: Local Control and Matter 1.6

Samsung's October 6 SmartThings update leads with "SmartThings Now," a row of suggestion cards at the top of the app's Home tab. That's the part Samsung put in the headline. The part I care about is further down: the SmartThings app can now talk directly to your hub when your phone is on the same Wi-Fi, instead of sending every tap up to Samsung's cloud and back down. Samsung also says SmartThings now supports Matter 1.6. Both are worth a closer look, and one of them needs an asterisk.

The app now talks to the hub directly

Here's what Samsung says. When your phone and a SmartThings hub are on the same Wi-Fi network, the phone "can communicate directly with the hub rather than routing controls through the cloud." The app switches between local and cloud control on its own, depending on whether you're home or away. Samsung claims local control can improve response times "by approximately 30%," and the footnote says that number comes from Samsung's own tests "under controlled conditions." Treat it as a lab number.

Speed isn't the real story anyway. Outages are. A local control path means the light in your living room shouldn't depend on Samsung's servers when you're standing in the living room. Samsung's wording is careful: it says this helps keep devices controllable "during temporary network fluctuations." The hub firmware release notes are blunter. The app can talk to the hub on the same local network "even when the Hub is offline," meaning cut off from the cloud.

One distinction worth keeping straight, because SmartThings forum users raised it right away: plenty of routines already ran locally on the hub with Edge drivers. A local automation isn't the same as local control. What was missing was the app itself reaching the hub without a round trip to the cloud. That's what changed.

Which hubs

Samsung's footnote lists Android and iOS phones with the SmartThings app, and these hubs: SmartThings Station, SmartThings V2, V3 and V4 hubs, plus hub-enabled Samsung Smart TVs and Family Hub fridges.

The hub side shipped first. The local-app line showed up in the hub firmware 0.62.7 notes, which started rolling out September 8 and marked the feature as dependent on an upcoming app version. Samsung followed with 0.62.13 on October 12, paused it October 13 after "a rare crash in a handful of Hubs," and started 0.62.14 on October 15 with a rollout window running through October 20. That firmware thread targets the 2015 Hub v2, the 2018 Hub v3, the Aeotec Smart Home Hub and Hub 2, and the ThingsOne hub. The Aeotec and ThingsOne hubs are in the firmware thread but not in Samsung's press-release footnote. If you're on one of those, I wouldn't assume app-to-hub local control works until you've seen it work.

Matter 1.6, with an asterisk

Samsung says it added support for Matter 1.6, "enhancing stability and Group Control performance," plus four new device categories:

• Energy meters for real-time power monitoring
• Closures for specialized door and gate types
• Irrigation devices such as sprinkler systems
• Soil sensors

Those are new to SmartThings. They're not new in Matter 1.6. The Connectivity Standards Alliance's Matter 1.5 announcement from November 2025 is where closures, soil sensors and the newer energy-metering features came in, with irrigation systems pitched right alongside the soil sensors. The CSA's own Matter 1.6 announcement (June 17, 2026) says the release works on setup and coordination "rather than expanding into new device categories."

The headline Matter 1.6 features are:

• NFC-based commissioning. Full setup over NFC, even before a device has power, so you can commission a switch before it goes in the wall.
• Joint Fabric. Several controllers co-administer one shared Matter network, instead of sharing devices across separate ecosystem networks.
• Thermostat Suggestions. A controller suggests a change and the thermostat weighs it against your preferences, instead of blindly obeying the last command.
• Smaller items, like smoke and CO alarms reporting when they've been removed from their mount.

Samsung's release doesn't mention any of them. I'm not saying SmartThings lacks them. I'm saying the announcement doesn't claim them. So if you're buying a device specifically for NFC setup or Joint Fabric, "SmartThings supports Matter 1.6" isn't enough to go on yet.

SmartThings Now and the new Home tab

The rest of the update is interface. SmartThings Now puts cards at the top of the Home tab based on what's going on. Samsung's examples: if a Family Care member, like an older parent, shows no device activity for a long stretch, the caregiver gets a card with options to check in or call. Arrive near home and it suggests turning on lights and air purifiers, then nudges you to make that a routine. A Routine Insight card shows the past week of routine activity so you can delete the ones you don't use. It also suggests Favorites changes, like dropping the air conditioner card as the weather cools.

The Family Care card is a genuinely good idea. Routine Insight is good housekeeping; most of us have dead routines we forgot about. Floating Bar and Live Wallpaper are just new paint. The redesigned Home tab spans phones, Samsung TVs, Family Hub fridges, Samsung appliances with 7- or 9-inch screens, and Windows.

Early reactions on the SmartThings community's Android app thread aren't kind. These are individual reports, not confirmed bugs, but they're useful:

• Truncated tile labels and custom room wallpapers that got reset.
• One member found that offline-device and similar alerts now show up in the SmartThings Now area, so turning SmartThings Now off can hide them. Offline Diagnostics is still on the Menu tab.
• One user said their Hub v4 tile and some Edge-driver device tiles wouldn't open after updating, and planned to roll back.

What I'd do

• Update the app and check your hub firmware. The hub feature was flagged as needing the newer app, so you need both.
• Test it the only way that counts. With your phone on home Wi-Fi, unplug the internet side of your router and try a light and a lock from the app. If it works, you've got local control. If it doesn't, you know before a storm takes your internet out.
• Leave SmartThings Now on if you rely on offline alerts, or check Offline Diagnostics on the Menu tab yourself.
• Don't shop for Matter 1.6 features based on this announcement. Wait for Samsung to say NFC commissioning or Joint Fabric by name.

Google Home made a similar move on October 14, shifting existing Hue bridges to local Matter control through its hubs. The big platforms are finally treating "it still works when the internet is down" as a feature worth announcing. For SmartThings, an app that can reach its own hub without the cloud was overdue. I'm glad it's here. I'll believe the 30% when people measure it in real homes.