Samsung has begun notifying users inside its own app that Samsung Sound will stop working on March 31, 2027. From that date, anyone who wants to keep controlling their soundbars and wireless speakers will have to do so through SmartThings, the app the company already uses for the rest of its connected ecosystem.
What Samsung Sound was and why it is going away
Samsung Sound launched as a dedicated app for controlling and adjusting soundbars and speakers with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. Its scope covered models released in 2024 and later. The original idea was to replace SmartThings for home audio, but the app fell short in some key features compared with Samsung’s broader platform, and the company has decided to reverse course.
Rather than maintaining two parallel apps, Samsung is now folding those features back into SmartThings. The notice, sent through the app itself, asks users to move their use over to SmartThings.
What changes for anyone with a Samsung soundbar or speaker
The change affects the software, not the hardware: soundbars and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi speakers released in 2024 or later keep working, but managing them now goes through SmartThings. The timeline is clear:
- Until March 31, 2027: Samsung Sound remains available, already carrying the shutdown notice.
- From that date: the app stops working and audio control is centralized in SmartThings.
For the user, the practical step is to install SmartThings, link the audio devices that were set up in Samsung Sound, and check that settings such as equalization, network connection and updates are still reachable. The consolidation avoids keeping two apps with overlapping features, though in practice it forces users to reconfigure their equipment once.
A familiar pattern in Samsung’s software
The shutdown of Samsung Sound comes a few months after the company retired Samsung Messages, another case of a first-party app being absorbed into a broader service. SmartThings is the piece Samsung is using to unify its ecosystem, and much of that effort has focused on software: just a few days ago we learned that the SmartThings redesign reaches iPhone before Galaxy phones, a sign that the app is now the company’s main bet for managing its devices.
For anyone with a compatible Samsung soundbar or speaker, the recommendation is not to wait until the last day: migrating to SmartThings with time to spare avoids losing control when the old app is switched off. The fair question is not whether Samsung Sound was better or worse, but whether SmartThings now covers everything it offered; according to the company’s own notice, that is its intention.
