Samsung plans for a truly connected TV with appliance control

Have you ever thought while you were watching Doctor Who that it would be nice if the kettle would automatically switch on and make you a cup of tea? Well something like that is coming, provided you have updated everything in your home.

Samsung has this week announced that a new version of its Smart TV platform is coming, and while last year’s version made it possible to speak to your TV to get recommendations and change channels, this new one could do a lot more.

Some of that “more” could include controlling Samsung appliances that are already setup for being smart.

At the moment, that makes our example a little fake, since Samsung doesn’t yet make a kettle, and probably won’t for a while as the company believes it can currently offer better benefits with bigger appliances than small machines like tea and coffee machines.

That said, the update to the Smart TVs will control bigger appliances, like smart air conditioners, smart refrigerators, and even the possibility of lighting, though we haven’t seen Samsung enter this space yet.

To do this, it’s likely we’ll see new menus and apps on the Samsung Smart TV interface on upcoming models, though recent models could see these changes too, especially since Samsung’s Evolution Kit has made that possible in the past for select TVs.

Outside of the appliance control, Samsung will also be bringing better website viewing to the TVs thanks to HTML5 support, and a technology to make apps more compatible across all the models of TV Samsung makes, not just the big expensive ones that only a few people end up buying.

We have no doubt we’ll find out more shortly when the Consumer Electronics Show starts in just a few days, which is precisely when Samsung will let developers get their hands on the Software Development Kit for the new platform, which happens on January 6.