Your Samsung Appliances Don't Need the Cloud—LocalThings Talks to Them Over Your Home Network
You've got a Samsung washer, fridge, or AC unit that works with SmartThings. That's great, except every time you want to check a status or trigger an automation, the request goes out to Samsung's servers and back. What if you could skip that round trip entirely and talk to the appliance sitting in your laundry room? That's what LocalThings does—a Home Assistant integration that controls Samsung appliances over your local network, with no cloud account involved.
What It Does
LocalThings is a Home Assistant custom component that connects to Samsung washers, dryers, refrigerators, air conditioners, ovens, dishwashers, and a long list of other SmartThings-compatible appliances. Instead of routing commands through Samsung's cloud, it communicates with each appliance directly on your local network. After setup, it never contacts Samsung's servers.
The integration is built on OCF (Open Connectivity Foundation), the standard Samsung's connected appliances actually implement. It discovers each appliance's resources through /oic/res and reads device types like oic.d.washer from /oic/d. Setup is mostly automatic: for most appliances, you enter an IP address, and LocalThings figures out the type and model, then creates matching controls and sensors. Appliances that support push updates send changes as they happen; everything else gets polled every 30 seconds.
It covers a wide range of hardware—air conditioners (including multi-unit systems), air dressers, air monitors and purifiers, cooktops, dehumidifiers, dishwashers, dryers, heat pumps, microwaves, ovens, ranges, refrigerators, kimchi refrigerators, wine cellars, robot vacuums (early support), soundbars, vacuum clean stations, washers, and water purifiers. Most Samsung appliances from around 2022 onward work, plus some earlier washers, air conditioners, and wall ovens on an older local interface. There's also initial Samsung TV support for picture-mode settings, though it requires an existing OCF credential that most owners can't acquire yet.
Why It's Cool
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It actually removes the cloud from the loop. Plenty of integrations claim "local control" while still leaning on a vendor account for authentication or state. LocalThings doesn't—once you're set up, it's you and your appliances on your own network.
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Your data stays home. The README is honest about the limits here: the appliance itself still keeps its own connection to Samsung, and LocalThings doesn't change that. But LocalThings sends nothing to Samsung, which is a meaningful distinction for anyone who'd rather not hand a third party a log of when their dryer runs.
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Setup is refreshingly low-effort. One IP address, and the integration works out the rest—appliance type, model, the right controls and sensors. No lengthy pairing dance, no account credentials to paste in.
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It knows when it doesn't know. If an appliance sets up but isn't recognized, or a control is missing, Home Assistant shows a notice asking for a diagnostics download. That's usually all the maintainers need to add support. It's a small design decision that turns "this doesn't work for me" into an actionable bug report.
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The coverage is genuinely broad. Washers and dryers are the obvious use case, but the appliance table runs from wine cellars to robot vacuums. Controls and sensors vary by what each appliance reports—power, program selection, start/pause/stop, temperatures and setpoints, time remaining and finish time, door and child-lock state, energy use, filter status, and alarms are all on the table.
How to Try It
- Make sure you have Home Assistant running and your Samsung appliances on the same local network.
- Head to the repository and follow the installation instructions for the custom component. The project carries HACS and Hassfest validation badges, so it's set up to install through HACS like other custom integrations.
- Add the integration in Home Assistant and enter the IP address of an appliance. LocalThings will detect the interface (including the older TCP 8888 interface on some pre-2022 hardware) and tell you if it finds none.
- Repeat for each appliance you want to bring in. If something sets up but isn't fully recognized, grab the diagnostics download when prompted and file it—that's how support gets added.
Final Thoughts
LocalThings is for the Home Assistant user who's already invested in local control and doesn't want their automations depending on Samsung's uptime. It's not magic—your appliances still phone home on their own, and newer hardware is the safest bet—but the integration does exactly what it promises without pretending otherwise. The diagnostics-driven approach to expanding support suggests the maintainers expect gaps and are set up to close them. If you've got a recent Samsung appliance and a Home Assistant instance, it's worth a look.
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