Samsung Pushes Smart Home Efforts With Quietside Acquisition

By Sarah Price - 19 Aug '14 08:47AM

Samsung announced Tuesday that it has acquired a leading distributer of heating, ventilation and air conditioning products, Quietside, in a bid to stand firm as a "smart home" leader.

Samsung, the leading brand in smartphone, tablet and other electronics, is entrenching itself as a "smart home" provider. The Korean tech giant announced Tuesday that it has acquired leading U.S. air conditioning distributer Quietside to achieve its goal in the niche "Internet of Things" or IoT category.

This will help both Samsung and Quietside. With greater access to Samsung's range of energy efficient and cost effective HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) products, Quietside will get a stronger hold in the industry.

Samsung's takeover of Quietside is the second acquisition by the tech giant in less than a week. The company snapped connected home startup SmartThings last Thursday. The company builds apps that allow users to remotely monitor, control and automate devices at home, a category which has drawn attention from various tech companies.

"Samsung is excited to deepen our long relationship with Quietside by making this acquisition," Tim Baxter, president of Samsung Electronics America, said in a press release, Tuesday. "Samsung always looks to bring innovation and new technology to our customers and we look forward to working with Sang and his team to bring that same commitment to selling HVAC products to customers across North America."

Quietside will continue operations independently, like Samsung's recently-acquired SmartThings. Sang Lee, the founder of Quietside, will helm the company as the CEO.

Samsung's smart-home related acquisitions suggest the company is stacking up all the resources it needs to dominate the home appliance market by 2015. With more and more tech companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft joining the arena it is important for the tech giant to build a strong base before building its new kingdom.

Quietside has operations across the United States with nearly 500 stores and sells air conditioners to homes and offices, Reuters reported. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.