Samsung has launched a brand new demand response program for its SmartThings good residence platform. Flex Join permits your SmartThings linked home equipment to speak with the grid and routinely cut back power use when there’s a spike in demand, which might assist keep away from blackouts. Whereas demand response packages have made for some scary headlines, many consultants consider connecting our good properties to the grid is vital for managing the pressure on our power community.
Flex Join is offered in New York and California and works with SmartThings Vitality — an power administration answer. It faucets into SmartThings’ AI Vitality Mode to automate how good home equipment and linked gadgets like lights and thermostats reply to demand response occasions.
AI Vitality Mode, which Samsung says can save as much as 70 p.c of power consumption when utilizing Samsung merchandise, is a great program that learns your family’s routines and routinely adjusts home equipment and gadgets’ power use to avoid wasting power primarily based on targets you set within the app.
In response to Samsung, when a requirement response sign is obtained out of your utility firm, Flex Join can routinely activate the AI Vitality Mode to avoid wasting further power use in supported home equipment, routinely energy off gadgets — together with third-party lights and plugs — and routinely modify supported thermostats to decrease their power use.
In case you don’t have any supported home equipment, you’ll be able to nonetheless use the SmartThings Vitality characteristic to obtain alerts when an occasion is triggered. This manner, you’ll be able to know to regulate your thermostat or not run your dryer.
The Flex Join program is elective, and you’ll select which gadgets you wish to enroll, in addition to change them at any time. Any equipment or machine that works with SmartThings Vitality could be linked to Flex Join. Whereas the suitable gadgets listing is dominated by Samsung home equipment, a number of third-party plugs, lights, and thermostats are supported. Some notable manufacturers embody Wemo, TP-Hyperlink, Aeotec, Ecobee, Sengled, and Resideo (Honeywell Dwelling). There’s additionally assist for Tesla merchandise, together with the Powerwall and Loop EV chargers.
Samsung hasn’t supplied particular particulars on how utilities will work with this system, if there are plans to broaden to extra states, or when Flex Join will go dwell. We’ll replace this put up with extra info after we obtain it.
