What just happened? Days after unveiling the Galaxy S26, Samsung is bringing its mobile digital wallet closer to parity with Apple Wallet. In the coming weeks, several smart lock manufacturers will likely confirm their support for Samsung's new digital house key technology.
Starting this month, smart locks from Aqara, Nuki, Schlage, and Ultraloq will support Samsung's recently announced Digital Home Key for Samsung Wallet. Similar to Apple Wallet's digital keys, Samsung users will be able to unlock the door to their home by opening the wallet app on their phone or smartwatch and holding the device near the smart lock.
The data is stored on the device with Samsung Knox security and accessed via biometric or PIN authentication. If a device containing a digital home key is lost or stolen, Samsung Find can manage access remotely.
Users can activate a digital key during the setup process for smart locks that support Samsung SmartThings. Smart lock manufacturers have not yet published guides for activating the feature, but users should regularly check their support sites for updates.
With this update, Samsung Wallet essentially mirrors Apple Wallet's features. The two apps can store credit cards, debit cards, rewards cards, vaccine cards, boarding passes, car keys, ID cards, and more for easy access. Samsung Wallet supports numerous Galaxy S, Z, A, and Note devices.
Digital Home Keys and Samsung SmartThings build upon the Matter protocol, a common framework for smart home devices that received a major update late last year. Matter version 1.5 introduces a device category for cameras, allowing various smart home cameras to integrate with controllers from SmartThings, Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and other services.
The introduction of Samsung Wallet Digital Home Keys comes shortly after the company unveiled the Galaxy S26 smartphone lineup. The most notable addition is the flagship Galaxy S26 Ultra's Privacy Display, which hides screen content from anyone viewing the phone from an indirect angle, preventing passersby from glancing at the screen. The feature uses an innovative combination of two types of pixels to control the direction of the screen's light output.
The S26 series also introduces camera upgrades to improve stability and widen aperture. Meanwhile, the phones control Samsung Smart Home devices with the company's Bixby AI assistant while relying on Gemini and Perplexity for general queries.