Amid all the innovative tech coming out of CES 2024 this week, Samsung is announcing new features for its smart home automation system, SmartThings. These include Map View -- a 3D layout of your home to make smart home devices easily accessible -- as well as a new way to share smart home control with others, and a way to turn your Samsung TV into a smart home center. 

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Like the new feature added to the Amazon Alexa app, Map View will give users a 3D layout view of the smart devices around their home. This alternative view is more helpful and easier to sift through than the list of currently available devices on the Samsung SmartThings app. 

Unlike Alexa's Map View, which can only create a map using a LiDAR-enabled smartphone, SmartThings lets anyone create a map by uploading or accessing their home's floor plan, or by simply sketching the floor plan on the app to create the layout. 

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Users will also be able to add AI characters to their homes that resemble their own family members and pets to add some levity to their smart home automation system. These AI characters in the SmartThings app will be able to mimic statuses, like appearing to be sweating or shivering if your home's temperature is outside your preset range. 

Alongside the new Map View feature in the SmartThings app, users will also be able to share their smart home devices with others by simply having them scan a QR code that is unique to their account. As smart home users, we share control of our downstairs thermostat with guests staying in the bedroom on that floor, which is a way you can use the SmartThings app's new way to share too. 

The new feature is called SmartThings Together, and can enable members of the household or guests to securely control specific devices of your choosing and create their routines for a pre-defined duration. This would allow parents to give their kids control over certain devices in the home, like speakers and lights, and give visiting friends and family control over the smart lock, smart thermostat, and smart lights.

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Samsung also announced a new way for its TVs to become a smart home control center as a SmartThings Hub. Compatible Samsung TVs can work as a SmartThings Hub, with Samsung smartphones in the vicinity being instantly detected and used as a remote control. 

The SmartThings TV Quick Panel allows for quick access to smart home devices, where users can view security cameras, adjust temperatures, check on the laundry cycle, control smart lights, and ring their Samsung smartphone to find it in their home.  

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