Everyone knows the feeling: You’re halfway to work, stuck in morning traffic, when you realize you can’t remember if you turned the oven off or not. Well, if you’re a Mercedes-Benz owner, you know longer have that worry.
Today, Samsung announced the integration of its SmartThings platform into Mercedes-Benz vehicles. It will give users the ability to use their car as a control center for their smart home. Thanks to this new feature, users can directly control their home from their vehicle without the need for a phone to act as an intermediary device.
The integrated voice control system allows users to control “thousands” of devices supported by the Samsung SmartThings platform. You can ask questions like, “Hey, Mercedes, did I leave the lights on at the house?” You can also use the system to open your garage door as you pull into your driveway, turn your thermostat on as you leave the office, and much more.
While users have always been able to control these devices remotely with their phones, the integration of a voice assistant into a vehicle makes it possible to take care of tasks in your home with nothing more than a few spoken words — perfect for those times when something comes to mind at a stoplight, but you can’t reach for your phone.
The control is not limited solely to the driver, either. Passengers in the back seats can also utilize the MBUX Voice Assistant to control the home. Mercedes-Benz and Samsung are working together to bridge the gap between car and home and hope that by implementing a voice assistant with smart home capabilities into Mercedes vehicles, the car can feel more like an extension of your home than just a tool for getting from point A to point B.
The integration of SmartThings with the MBUX Voice Assistant gives users much more control over their home. You no longer have to come home with the lights off or to a chilly house. Just ask your Mercedes to turn on the lights, turn up the thermostat, or even start the Roomba. As long as a device is compatible with SmartThings, you can control it through the new Mercedes integration.
