SmartThings, the home automation, Internet of Things (IoT) company now part of Samsung (and with engineering offices in Minneapolis), has announced their next generation hub is available for pre-order now.

The Samsung SmartThings Hub will be available to purchase in early September, and you are now able to pre-order the new Hub in their Shop, on Samsung.com, and on Amazon. In addition, upon its release they will be delivering a new lineup of sensors, plugs and more.

SmartThings had this to say about their new hub:

The Hub will deliver an enhanced experience that offers greater performance and reliability. Here’s why:

As we’ve announced, the new SmartThings Hub will come equipped with “AppEngine” functionality. This means that much of the processing that has previously existed in the cloud (ie: SmartApps and device types) can now automatically occur locally in the Hub. Circumventing the cloud will result in a much faster response time with automations.

It will also mean that certain automations (SmartApps; Hello, Home actions, etc.) driven by ZigBee, Z-Wave, or LAN-connected devices will continue to work even if you lose your Internet connection. And because the new Hub contains battery backup capability, certain automations can continue to work for awhile even without power.

As expected, Samsung’s CEO BK Yoon delivered an Internet of Things-centric keynote. Though the keynote was surprisingly simplistic and quite basic, he did give a high level overview that focused on the importance of open standards. He then committed to Samsung being open and focused on open, interoperable things.

He then introduced Alex Hawkinson, SmartThings’ CEO.

Without going in to any specifics, Hawkinson proceeded to roll out their new hub, new sensors, and a premium cloud service while touting their partnerships and that they’ve doubled the number of developers since being acquired by Samsung six months ago.

The new hub is particularly welcome from we early adopters (I’ve been a user since day one). The current hub only worked when the internet connection was live and it was quite frustrating when their service was down and lights wouldn’t turn on (or off…and be on all night). Now, should your internet connection go down, the hub will still perform all of its functions to trigger events with the ‘things’ connected to it.

Their blog post had this to say about what was new:

The new SmartThings Hub includes a more powerful processor and local app engine, built-in backup battery power, and expanded cellular connectivity. This will enable SmartThings to continue operating in the event of a power or Internet outage.

The new Hub also expands connectivity options to include additional wireless protocols such as Bluetooth Smart, providing customers with the widest range of devices supported by any smart home platform.

They’ve also announced a new family of sensors with modified versions of the SmartSense Presence, SmartSense Motion, and SmartSense Multi sensors.

In addition, a new (optional) premium cloud-based service will “…offer customers advanced incident management control, and improved home monitoring through DVR video streaming.“

While potentially exciting, the cloud service also has a potential downside. Like many companies in the Internet of Things space, SmartThings/Samsung is seemingly salivating over the prospect of having all of our connected-device data flowing to them.

Samsung connected TVs is already collecting our TV watching habits and a comprehensive service collecting significant usage data from within our homes could be problematic from  a privacy perspective.

After SmartThings CEO Alex Hawkinson spoke about their new premium service, there was a short segment about how an Internet of Things wine refrigerator could understand consumption patterns and make recommendations, but then went on to talk about the huge benefit for marketing and the supply chain to understand all of it. That intimates in-home usage data would benefit marketers and stores, and potentially also cause unknown privacy breaches.

So perhaps we can set up the new SmartThings hub, get it working, and then disconnect it from the internet?

Article by the StarTribune’s Jeff Hargarten on Internet of Things cyberattack threat:

Cyberattacks launched through toasters, dishwashers, watches and refrigerators are among the threats information security professionals anticipate as the “Internet of things” becomes a reality.

…there have already been recorded instances of other home appliances across the country being exploited by hackers. Earlier this year, 750,000 spam e-mails were traced back to a “thingnet” of more than 100,000 gadgets that included televisions, home entertainment centers and at least one refrigerator.

Read ‘Internet of things’ is soft target for hackers for more…

UPDATE: The deal is done.

Techcrunch’s Alexia Tsotsis (@alexia) reported this one hour ago:

Google has Nest, Apple has HomeKit and Samsung has…SmartThings, we’re hearing. The deal was completed for around $200 million dollars, though it might have been less according to one source.

(Update: The deal is not done yet, says another.)

Read more at Techcrunch…

Good news that Liz Gannes at re/code posted about Twin Cities-based Spark raising $4.9 Million to “bring Wifi to things”:

Last time Spark raised money, it set out to raise $10,000 and got $567,000, via a nifty pitch on Kickstarter. This time, venture capitalists including Lion Wells Capital and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures have put up $4.9 million in a Series A round. Spark is another one of the many connectors for the Internet of Things. It helps people add Wi-Fi to whatever they are building with a tiny piece of open source hardware and an API. Spark also wants to expand beyond Wi-Fi, said CEO Zach Supalla.

Verizon Wireless Business is running a Connected Technology Tour around select U.S. cities and yesterday’s stop was in Minneapolis. Its focus? The impact of the Internet of Things (IoT) and how attendees could, “…learn how businesses and public agencies are leveraging the accelerated growth of connected devices to increase operational efficiencies, enhance safety and security and, in some cases, generate new revenue streams.”

Did it deliver?

The short answer is “yes” since it was incredibly useful and informative to talk with the partners who had booths setup. The things I learned about using wireless technologies for failover and redundant connections—and what solutions were already available—has already enlightened me on possibilities and proved useful for the IoT startups I advise.

The longer answer is “maybe” since several of the attendees I spoke with were very interested in what the keynote speaker, Jack Uldrich, had to say. Billed as a “Global Futurist and Best-Selling Author” Uldrich’s overview of IoT was fairly basic to anyone who has spent any time investigating IoT.

It was unclear to me whether or not the audience knew much of what Uldrich covered—and like me wanted stats-and-facts about the size of the IoT market, what categories are growing and where investments were occurring—but perhaps I was in the minority due to my extensive study of the Internet of Things.

What I really liked (and was probably the point) is that Uldrich’s message was focused  to motivate attendees to investigate IoT now and get moving before they were disrupted by some competitor who would, or before their business model was modified or destroyed.

Uldrich defined IoT, talked about why it was happening, that the audience needed to prepare for it, and what was next, all while sprinkling in fun examples to show how we audience members don’t perceive change well. He was undoubtedly preparing us to strongly consider that IoT was a market that would experience exponential change, and if we weren’t paying attention it would suddenly be all around us and we’d be caught flat-footed.

Getting the audience to think about IoT’s growth as exponential change, instead of linear or geometric change, was done by Uldrich using what I’ve always thought was the best example to explain exponential growth: lilypad’s and a lake…

To those who don’t believe IoT will change the world in the near future just because it hasn’t accomplished much yet, consider this little quiz: If a single lily pad began doubling on a small lake on the first day of June and doubled each day thereafter until the entire lake was covered by the end of the month, on Day 20 what percentage of the pond would be covered with lily pads?

The answer is one-tenth of one percent. That’s right, .1%! What happens over the next 10 days is a little short of amazing—the entire pond gets completely covered with lilypads. Such is the nature of exponential growth.

I can say from personal experience (and that I already own about thirty ‘things’ installed at my house already due to SmartThings), that there will be exponential growth of the purchase and use of internet-connected things quickly in the home. But home automation is not the big opportunity.

Businesses adopting IoT—and connecting to the internet mostly in a wireless way—is where the action is. Tracking assets, monitoring remotely, managing vehicles (and where they are, their load and more), and all the possibilities in health care is a huge opportunity for the arguably more dependable (and often the only option for specific use-cases) wireless connectivity.

If the IoT technology space plays out even somewhat like the personal computer, multimedia, and internet space did over the last 35-45 years, once businesses see early adopters enjoying successful implementation of IoT sensors, hubs and analytics to streamline operations and make more money, every other business will scramble to get on board…

…and Verizon Wireless M2M Solutions (machine-to-machine) positioning, services and partners will place them directly in the path of much of this IoT exponential explosion. I’m guessing Verizon thinks so too since they’re investing in seminars just like this one all over the country.

Recent Articles on the Internet of Things:

• The Guardian: Internet of Things: it’s all coming together for a tech revolution
• The Motley Fool: Even the Public Sector Is Diving Into the Internet of Things
• ZDNet: Preparing for the Internet of Things
• GSMA: China Leads Global Connected Living Market With Over 50 Million M2M Connections
• The Telegraph: Is business ready for the Internet of Things? Inanimate objects are getting smarter, so businesses must too
• Yahoo News: Tech giants scramble for lead on ‘Internet of Things’