INTERVIEWS
40 Invited interviews with media and press

Quoted in a piece by Emily Fazio in Men's Journal Pursuits on how the partnership between SmartThings and GE Lighting unlocks capabilities to make kitchens more productive and personalized.

“Through this partnership, we’re able to further enhance the kitchen experience for SmartThings users, seamlessly illuminating homes like never before,” said Mark Benson, Head of SmartThings US. “Creating the most user-friendly connected home experience is the goal behind each of our partnerships, and we look forward to the rollout of additional SmartThings-compatible products, offering consumers even more options to enhance their living spaces.”

Quoted for a piece in Slice of Real Estate on the partnership between GE Lighting and SmartThings and how the integration of Cync® reveal® HD+ full-color undercabinet fixtures and SmatThings can enhance the functionality and aesthetic appeal of home lighting to make homes more accessible, intuitive, and tailored to individual needs.

Through this partnership, we're able to further enhance the kitchen experience for SmartThings users, seamlessly illuminating homes like never before.

Interviewed for a piece by Paul Lamkin in The Ambient on how Matter adoption is going for the smart home industry, and what things need to happen in order for it to become widely recognized and used by everyday consumers.

“Matter is great step for the industry, but it is a monumental kind of change that doesn’t happen overnight,” Benson told us.

“The idea of Matter is that products are compatible by design, and that consumers will have high confidence that they are going to work with their Matter based setup,” explained Benson.

Interviewed for a piece by Brandon Doyle in Realtor Magazine on how smart home technologies are enhancing outdoor living, powering security and monitoring systems, making irrigation systems more water-efficient, powering autonomous robotic lawn mowers, and enabling remote monitoring and control of smart grills.

As we look forward, Mark Benson, Head of SmartThings, predicts a future where smart home technology will bring about even more innovative solutions for outdoor living. "As smart home technology evolves, we can expect even more innovative solutions for outdoor living. From automated irrigation systems to intelligent lighting and climate control, the future of outdoor living is set to become increasingly seamless, efficient and tailored to the needs of modern homeowners."

Interviewed for a piece by Leanne Potts for the Zillow Learning Center on what people need to know about smat home tech, what benefits there are, and how to get started.

“While ‘smart home’ is a concept that’s been around for a decade, new technology has made it more common,” says Mark Benson, head of SmartThings, Samsung’s home automation company.

“Consumers are reimagining their homes and thinking about them as places of relaxation, safety and now work,” Benson says. “People want more from their homes, and smart home technology and home automation are helping them make their homes better. That has led to a rapid adoption of smart home tech in just the last few years.”

“In my house, we have some automation through the SmartThings app that shuts the house down at night,” Benson says. “We call it ‘Good night.’ So, when we’re going to bed, we can just say, ‘Alexa, Good night,’ and the home automation turns off the lights and locks the door.”

“Installing smart lighting is as easy as putting in a smart light bulb and downloading an app to run it,” Benson says. “You can get a lot of energy savings from turning off lights when no one is in the room,” he says. “You can also set the right mood for watching a movie without going around and hitting every light switch in the room.” You can use smart lights indoors or outdoors, so you can easily control lights on the porch, in the living room or in your bedroom by touching a screen or speaking to a voice assistant.

“Smart thermostats use sensors to detect when you’re home, and they only run the HVAC when you are there,” Benson says. “They can save you a lot of money on your energy bill.”

Interviewed for a piece by Wes Davis in The Hive about the Matter standard and how SmartThings will pioneer support for this new and exciting smart home standard, including key partnerships with Google and Amazon.

Our goal is to deliver robust Matter Controller support on SmartThings/Aeotec hubs and Samsung products that support integrated SmartThings Hub software. SmartThings users will be able to build powerful automations that work seamlessly with smart home devices across Matter, Zigbee, and Z-Wave protocols.

Our initial focus for enhanced multi-admin collaboration with Google is on Android platforms. Support for other operating systems will be considered in the future. Note that once Matter devices are onboarded to the SmartThings platform, they can be monitored/controlled from the SmartThings client app running on any platform.

Interviewed for a piece by Paul Lamkin in The Ambient on how Samsung's SmartThings is set to support the Matter smart home standard with its hubs (including the Aeotec Hub V3), acting as Matter controllers. These hubs will enable easier integration of devices through Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and Thread compatibility. The article goes on to cover how Samsung aims to simplify smart home setups by making devices more interoperable and less complex – a major barrier to adoption.

“That experience is something that we definitely brought to the table, and that that includes all kinds of obvious things around just getting devices to work together in an interoperable way,” Benson explained.

“I think better than anybody, when it comes to aggregating this fragmented ecosystem of devices, it’s been a driving focus for SmartThings since the beginning.

“Just working across brands ands protocols, and being able to have a smart home that’s easy to manage, even though you have multiple brands in your home.”

Interviewed for a piece by Rebecca Bratburd in Mansion Global on the expanding adoption and usability of home automation technology in the kitchen.

The kitchen is the heart of the home—and often, the heart of smart-home technology, according to Mark Benson, the head of SmartThings, a subsidiary of Samsung.

“In my home, we have many lights, and also locks, thermostats, motion sensors, garage door openers and Samsung appliances,” Benson said. “They all work seamlessly together through SmartThings.”

Interviewed for a piece by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy in The Verge about the important role of Matter in shaping the future of the smart home industry. The article discusses the upcoming changes in the smart home landscape with the introduction of the Matter standard, which promises to make smart devices compatible across different platforms. The article also shares SmartThings' plan to adopt Matter, focusing on improving user experience as the key differentiator. SmartThings hubs, including those built into Samsung devices like TVs and refrigerators, will support Matter, enabling broader device compatibility.

A lot has changed in the industry since SmartThings launched. Architecturally, the platform has had to also evolve. We’ve been working on setting the platform up for scale and flexibility in the future.

There’s a lot of exciting things going on in the smart home space. Consumers have never been more willing to add smart devices to their homes. With the pandemic, people are rediscovering and reimagining what their home could be like and how they can make it better, which is translating to an excitement about smart home stuff.

SmartThings is really in the center of that movement where we’ve been since 2012. And I think we have a unique opportunity to bring our partners together to commit to the new industry standard, Matter. Finally, the industry has recognized [that connectivity] has been a barrier to adoption.

I do think that, in 10 years, we’re going to look back at this year as an industry inflection point — a fundamental change in the way companies work together to deliver things that actually work together, and not just in separate siloed ecosystems.

Interviewed for a piece by Jason Schoonover in Bethel Alumni News about my role at Samsung SmartThings, the smart home industry, how the field is changing, and the experiences and people that formed me and helped me see how technology can help people live better and more connected lives.

Few could have predicted Benson’s career path. He wasn’t avid about computers growing up and entered Bethel as a physics major, but an introductory computer course changed his perspective when the instructor highlighted how computers are tools to serve people in numerous ways. “My eyes were opened up to how you could actually change the world and make people’s lives better through computers, and I never understood that before,” he says.

“The Bethel experience really instilled in me this notion of asking in every step, ‘Why does this matter?’” he says. “'How is this going to impact consumers?’ ‘Why does this matter for the business, the world?’”

Interviewed for a piece by Jennifer A. Kingson about trends in smart home technology and how they are specifically enabling entertainment and recreation use cases that make homes more satisfying and immersive.

"This is a pivotal moment, actually right now this year," for smart home technology, says Mark Benson, head of Samsung's SmartThings U.S., which makes IoT systems for "connected living."

• The rollout of Matter, an industry connectivity standard for smart home devices, is expected to ensure that the gadgets we buy are interoperable, starting as early as next year.
• Ideally, you'll be able to control all your devices through one hardware hub connected to a single app — and you'll be able to set things up and program them without needing to call in a professional.

Matter "is a real thing that is happening and that will fundamentally change the [smart home] experience for the mass market user," Benson tells Axios.

• In the earlier days of IoT, "you really had to be an enthusiast DIY hobbyist person to really fit everything together, understand how it works, and in some cases even do a little bit of programming to get it to work," Benson says.
• But gradually, setting up all the devices you want is getting easier. In the "post-Matter world, it's about mass household adoption — how everyday consumers can get value from having a smart home and not have to be an expert," Benson says.

Interviewed by Stacey Higginbotham for a piece about SmartThings and a proactive and bold shift in product strategy coming soon for SmartThings to enable a high degree of differentiation in the coming age of smart home experiences.

SmartThings is pushing these changes because the smart home is finally getting to a point where users are comfortable buying devices and automating some things. But to take it to the next level, it has to get much, much easier. Benson’s lofty talk of “experiences,” covers a lot of ground, but the basic gist is that when someone buys a connected product in the future and brings it home to a SmartThings ecosystem, they should expect it to automatically connect and then to get suggestions about how that device might fit into their current apps or experiences running on the platform.

Interviewed by Stacey Higginbotham for a podcast about the current state of smart connected products, a proactive and bold shift in product strategy coming soon for SmartThings, and a perspective on how companies will compete in the future of smart home experiences.

A macro-economic movement:

Internet of Things is not a technology wave – it’s a macro-economic movement that represents new ways that people are interacting with their environments, their devices, data, and each other. In the end, people don’t just want technology for the sake of technology. They want their lives to be better.

The next generation of the smart home:

Home automation market is primed for growth. The price of sensors has dropped considerably and a significant percentage of households are now exposed to smart home technology. We couldn’t say that a few years ago.

Use cases are moving beyond monitoring/control to services/experiences. Connecting devices to the Internet is table stakes. Being able to remotely monitor and control devices and environments is something that consumers are coming to expect as basic building blocks of their smart home. But users are now looking beyond simple monitoring and control towards applications that matter to them and make their lives better. For example: reduce energy usage, better safety and security, and lifestyle applications such as cooking and caring for elders, family members, and pets.

Industry standardization efforts are gaining momentum, targeted at solving the #1 problem holding IoT back from mass adoption: complexity of the setup and use of devices, and the interoperability of those devices between other platforms and brands.

Interviewed by Joe Williams for a piece in Business Insider about some strategic shifts that SmartThings is making in 2020 to prepare for the next generation of smart home automation and the age of experience.

Benson said [...] he expects the market to explode. SmartThings has 62 million active users, which increased 70% over the past 12 months as device adoption doubled, according to Benson. "We're seeing rapid adoption of smart-home technology. And this year is a turning point year," he said. "Users will look beyond those simple use cases and really want to use technology to make their lives better."

Interviewed by Patrick Hearn for a piece on Digital Trends about user receptiveness to subscription-based services for smart home automation. However, the interview quotes were instead used for a different piece regarding questions about Galaxy Home.

Digital Trends spoke with Mark Benson, Head of Engineering for Samsung’s SmartThings, who provided some insights on SmartThings’ priorities. “Our strategy from the beginning has been obsessively centered on the experience of the user,” said Benson. “Hardware, I believe, will fade into the fabric of our connected lives and users will focus less and less on the devices, the gadgets, the hardware, but more on the experiences that they enable.”

Interviewed by Dan Gunderman for a piece on Cyber Security Hub about cyber security trends in the Internet of Things, and the opportunities and threats that will lead to increased spending in IoT security over the coming years:

Mark Benson, CTO of Exosite, said that IoT’s degree of security maturity is very low and the consequences of an enterprise breach are very high. These variables make for a highly combustible space.

Interviewed by Dan Gunderman for a piece in Cyber Security Hub about how IoT devices and the complexities they introduce will be key drivers of cyber security spending in the next few years.

[...] IT organizations are ill-equipped to manage IoT devices and lack the skills, tools and knowledge to monitor the health of device fleets, deploy security updates and manage the flow of data securely into other systems.

Interviewed in a piece for Forbes on the latest trends in cybersecurity and encryption, and specifically how the Internet of Things (IoT) is driving increases in security spending commensurate with the risks it presents.

IoT Device Security. The next wave of cybersecurity attacks will come from the internet-of-things (IoT) devices like appliances, lights and cameras. These types of devices are cheap, easy to hack, can be found in large numbers and are geographically distributed, making them ideal targets for a hacker to commandeer and launch a distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on an unsuspecting enterprise.

Interviewed this week for a TechTarget piece along with Harry Pascarella from Harbor Research, Dean Freeman from Gartner, and Doug Jacobson from Crestron Electronics on how to apply smart building technologies to multi-tenant properties in a way that delivers high value while meeting data privacy and security goals.

Companies that make fire extinguishers, for example, are not first and foremost information security companies. So, when they start adding sensors and smarts to these products, they don't always follow even industry best practices for security, let alone the fact that IoT presents a whole new set of security vulnerabilities that we're all just starting to hear about now.

Interviewed by Forbes for a piece on the challenges companies face dealing with cloud migration initiatives.

One of the biggest challenges companies face when migrating to the cloud is the gap in skills required in order to operate cloud workloads efficiently and securely at scale. Modern software architectures, cloud security concepts, virtualization tools, optimization patterns for metered services and auto-scaling techniques are areas of competence that many organizations struggle with.

Interviewed by Forbes for a piece on artificial intelligence (AI) and how its use will impact the way companies do business going forward.

Much of the fear with AI is due to the misunderstanding of what it is and how it should be applied. Although AI has promise for solving complex social problems, there are ethical issues and biases we must still explore. We are just beginning to understand how AI can be applied to meaningful problems. As our use of AI matures, we will find it to be a clear benefit in our lives.

Interviewed by Jim Romeo for a piece in Electrical Contractor Magazine about smart connected buildings and the role that electrical contractors play in understanding, configuring, installing, and maintaining Internet-connected building assets.

“[Electrical contractors can] differentiate themselves by having knowledge about what these smart building technologies are, how they are installed and configured, and how they can be operated in a way that maximizes energy use and ease of service.”

Interviewed by Dan Rafter for Distributed Energy Magazine on augmented reality and it's potential to increase efficiency and safety for industrial and commercial applications.

With industrial, the social situation is much different. Someone wearing a hardhat fitted with sensors isn’t worried about how it looks. In industrial uses, the outcomes are what matter. If you can show that wearing a helmet with sensors can make workers more efficient, that this product can save money, that’s what matters. So it doesn’t surprise me that AR technology is finding a second life in terms of industrial use.

Interviewed by Alan Griffiths from Cambashi for a piece in The Manufacturer on trends in Internet-connected products for industrial applications (the so called Industrial Internet of Things):

Mark Benson, chief technology officer of Exosite, says, “In the short term, we see trends moving towards more analytics offerings and related integrated services, more focus on device-to-cloud security offerings, and continued merger and acquisition consolidation.

“In the long term, we anticipate integrated augmented-reality services; the commoditisation of the cost of basic device management in order to lure more sales in analytics and business-process automation, and that IIoT PaaS (platform as a service) will become part of the standard enterprise it portfolio – similar to CRM and ERP.”

Interviewed by Alec Sears for an article in Datafloq that explores common mistakes that derail IoT projects.

Many companies get into a large IoT project only to realize it demands extensive expertise in hardware, software, security, marketing, and other areas. Mark Benson, chief technology officer of Exosite and member of the Forbes Technology Council, offers sound advice, saying smart companies “start their journey with simple discrete IoT applications that provide short-term economic gains and insights about what customers value, both of which inform the organization’s long-term IoT strategy and journey toward becoming a digital company.”

Interviewed by Labiba Boyd on Modern Tek News for KZSU Stanford 90.1 FM on how the Internet of Things is affecting smart buildings, and how organizations building connected products can do so in a way that builds long-term sustainable differentiation.

I also gave a preview of the keynote presentation that I will be giving on June 28th, 2017 at Sensors Expo in San Jose.

Interviewed by Forbes for a piece on net neutrality in light of the recent posture taken by the current presidential administration and its impact on the future of the Internet of Things.

Ubiquitous computing and pervasive connectivity are the fuels that feed internet of things growth. Without strong net neutrality laws, the bright future of IoT grows dim, as the threat of unnatural financially driven restrictions by ISPs will throttle the last mile of connectivity for smart connected products, which could ultimately stifle the long-term health of the U.S. economy.

Interviewed by Jack Sweeney for a Middle Market Executive audio piece on how traditional businesses are being transformed by embracing Internet of Things technology, adopting new software platforms, and revising their go-to-market strategies to optimize cost and create additional revenue streams.

Interviewed by Forbes for a piece on cyberphysical security and IoT devices:

Remember that end users play a crucial role in security. Consumers should understand the crucial role they play in cybersecurity, especially in regard to IoT devices, which have become increasingly accessible and vulnerable to hacking incidents. Consumers can make great strides in protecting themselves by using devices from reputable manufacturers, and protecting sensitive information like passwords and login credentials.

Interviewed by Forbes for a cyber security tech piece on how to avoid DDoS attacks:

Although total victory over hackers may be impossible, we can combat their efforts via a balanced approach that focuses as much on mitigating exploits as on preventing them. Develop a security strategy that can only be beaten by physical attacks, limits the scope of attacks to individual devices, and secures data at each step in the pipeline based on whether it is at rest, in motion, or in use.

Interviewed by Forbes in a piece on machine learning and analytics:

The road to advanced analytics and machine learning starts with basic connectivity and data collection. This journey includes pinpointing the questions that need to be answered with data analysis, identifying the data needed to answer those questions, and putting processes in place to gather the correct type and amount of that data to properly support machine learning.

Interviewed by John Edwards from Computer World on building cost-effective IoT sensor networks:

[...] companies that address sensor network deployment via a crawl-walk-run approach tend to achieve the greatest cost efficiencies, says Mark Benson, CTO of Exosite, a Minneapolis company that develops IoT software. "Key to building a cost-effective sensor network that scales in an efficient manner are [organizations] that start small, learn quickly and grow over time, all while ensuring that they are focusing their measurement efforts on the parameters that are closely correlated with finding anomalies and trends that make an impact on the business.

Also published in German for Computerwelt:

Der Schlüssel zu einem wirtschaftlichen Sensornetz, das effizient skaliert, sind Organisationen, die klein anfangen, schnell lernen und im Laufe der Zeit wachsen. Dabei konzentrieren sie sich beim Messen auf die Parameter, die eng mit der Suche nach Anomalien verbunden sind und Trends, die sich auf das Geschäft auswirken.

Interviewed by Paul Korzeniowski for the IoT Agenda series in TechTarget on Exosite.

ABSTRACT: IoT startup Exosite aims to supply organizations with the infrastructure needed to develop and support connected applications. Does it have the staying power?

Interiewed by Brandon Lewis for a piece in Embedded Computing Design as part of their IoT Design series on how IoT platforms bridge the two worlds of IT and OT (operational technology).

ABSTRACT: Internet of Things (IoT) “platform” has become a term as nebulous as “cloud” was a decade ago, partly because the technologies are still taking shape. However, there are clear differences between an IoT connectivity platform that serves industrial markets and those for the consumer IoT, such as reliability, security, and integration with highly specific enterprise services like building and plant management systems. But since Industrial IoT (IIoT) platforms touch so many parts of both the operational technology (OT) on the plant floor as well as backend IT operations, who should control them? Mark Benson, CTO of IoT software platform vendor Exosite gives his opinion.

Interviewed by Larry Greenemeier for a series in The Economist sponsored by Samsung called The Connected Enterprise about the skill shortage that many companies are facing for the pending wave of IoT projects.

ABSTRACT: Today, there’s no shortage of bold strategic visions for the Internet of Things. But none of these can be realized if organizations lack the skills needed to identify or invent the right types of sensors, gather the data those sensors produce, secure that data and make sense of them across various business units. In short: They need talent to turn IoT potential into reality.

Interviewed by Stephanie Overby for a piece in CIO Magazine on wearables in the industrial workplace.

ABSTRACT: From fitness trackers to smartwatches, wearable computing has made a splash with consumers. But most enterprises have yet to venture into the market. PwC found that just 3 percent of companies were investing in wearable technology in 2015–down from 6 percent in 2014. "Limited success stories and the risk of failed or ineffective implementations are causing CIOs to proceed with cautious and careful optimism," says Mark Benson, CTO of Exosite, which develops software to help companies visualize Internet of Things data.

Interviewed by Erik Linask from TMCnet on the topic of building sticky brand loyalty with connected products.

Interviewed by Brian Martucci for a piece in The Line Magazine on why the Minneapolis St. Paul area of Minnesota has a rich ecosystem of Interent of Things technology product and service companies.

ABSTRACT: Currently MSP boasts a lively, innovative IoT scene that produces connected devices, and systems that make them easier to use, for businesses and consumers alike. There’s even a movement afoot to rebrand MSP as “IoT Alley” in recognition of its historical and contemporary contributions to the field. (Though Boston-area techies claim ownership of the “IoT Alley” label too.) Whatever you want to call it, there’s no denying that MSP is leading the march toward a future in which even the most mundane objects — furniture, apparel, lawn sprinklers — plug into the cloud and communicate with the wider world.

Interviewed by John Keller for Military & Aerospace Electronics Magazine on a special piece on small-form-factor embedded computing.

ABSTRACT: There was a time not many years ago when 3U-size processor boards were among the smallest embedded computers imaginable. This form factor, 100 by 160 millimeters, or about the size of a paperback novel, opened a multitude of new applications for embedded computing, such as avionics for large unmanned vehicles, electronic subsystems for armored combat vehicles (vetronics), and portable electronics for soldiers on the battlefield. In that era, 6U computer boards were the standard, and 3U circuit cards were amazingly small.

Today, however, those paperback-book-sized embedded computing modules are starting to look large and clunky compared to the newest generations of small-form-factor embedded computing modules. Engineers are shrinking today's computer boards to the sizes of smartphones, credit cards, business cards, sticks of gum, and even postage stamps, which is encouraging systems designers to rethink their definitions of small-form-factor embedded computing.

Interviewed by Gareth Halfacree for the print edition of Linux User & Developer Magazine on the topic of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and its implications on licensing, micro-economics, and Android adoption rates for non-consumer (military, aerospace, industrial, medical) embedded devices.

ABSTRACT: With the release of Android 4.0, aka 'Ice Cream Sandwich', Google's mobile platform is open once more. While plenty has changed, some things stay the same - and we've got together with some industry names to find out the pros and cons of this latest release.