is a senior reviewer focused on smart home and connected tech, with over twenty years of experience. She has written previously for Wirecutter, Wired, Dwell, BBC, and US News.
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We’re one step closer to a smart home that can manage Thread border routers from different manufacturers. Samsung SmartThings now supports “two-way Thread network unification,” its fancy way of saying Thread credentials sharing. This means that now, if you add a Samsung device that’s a Thread border router to your home, it can join an existing Thread network from other ecosystems, rather than setting up its own.
The capability, which is part of the Thread 1.4 spec released last year, will launch on select SmartThings hubs — including the Aeotec Smart Home Hub and the Aeotec Smart Home Hub 2. More hubs will follow, according to the company.
A new “Manage Thread Network” menu in the SmartThings app Hub interface will allow you to connect a compatible hub to an existing Thread network using a QR code, one-time passcode, or your mobile OS credential locker. It will also allow you to add a third-party border router to an existing SmartThings hub’s Thread network via a QR code or OTP.
The new app interface for managing Thread network credential sharing in the SmartThings app. Image: Samsung
A Thread border router is a gateway for Thread devices. Thread is a wireless smart home protocol designed for low-power devices such as door locks, lights, and sensors, which is used by the Matter smart home standard. Border routers are required to connect local Thread devices to other networks and to the internet. The tech can be built into devices like streaming boxes, smart speakers, and Wi-Fi routers, which means it’s easy to amass several in a smart home.
Having multiple Thread border routers can improve the range of Thread devices you’re using, as well as the reliability of the self-healing mesh network. If one border router goes down, another can pick up the traffic.
When Matter launched in 2022, there was no standard way for a Thread border router from one manufacturer, such as an Apple TV, to connect with Thread border routers from another, like an Eero Wi-Fi router. This often resulted in each setting up separate Thread networks, preventing devices on them from talking to each other.
Initially, border router manufacturers — including Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung — said they would work together to come up with solutions to this problem, but they mostly didn’t. While Apple and Google implemented Thread network credentials sharing using their mobile OSes, via iCloud Keychain and Google Play services, this is largely ecosystem-specific. A standardized method for sharing credentials was still needed.
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