Reliability issues with SmartThings

Definitely worth a try. If “resetting” both releases the network and puts it back into the compatible frequency range of the Hue Bridge, then, sure sounds like it should work.

What is interesting is the problems some people have, such as the GE bulbs. I have 3 GE bulbs and all of them work without a problem. Others have their garage door setup working good. My garage door works good except the door will open randomly. The setup may work for months and then one day I may have it open once to as many as three times in a day, and then back to normal. I will say that this may have nothing to do with SmartThings but for a lack of understanding, SmartThings gets the blame.

A collective list of known problems would be a good starting point. It may be helpful for tech support to group like problems together with the users to see if the problems witnessed may be triggered by similar setups.

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@smart That works for the Cree bulbs, so it would seem likely for the Links. I will try it as well because I am tired of it losing connection with ST.

Will do it the next time the GE link loses connection and with the flaky hue integration right now… :wink: for some reason the GE links (not a big fan) had been working ok and has dropped only once or twice in months… I don’t even have to reset it to reclaim it. Just on and off with the pull string somehow fixes it. Only one of the two has been the troublemaker. The one in the front patio has never ever dropped link.

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You’re not alone OP. Like many people here they get smartthings, automate a couple of lights or something similar and get inspired to automate the house.

A few months go by and then they realize that you need airquotes around the “smart” in smartthings. I have had a system since October 2013, and the complaints have been the same all along.

Three times in the past two weeks I have come home to be greeted by my siren going off because it failed to mark be as “present” only to have to stand there with the siren screaming and wait for the app to load (1m +) just to shut it off.

Every few months someone (most recently @alex) comes on here to explain that “things are gonna change now” but they never do. Ever.

Go back and read this thread for the latest round of empty promises:

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The thing is, as I’ve said a few times, there are some particular problems that are used as examples over and over again, and, if analyzed, the majority of these have one of a small list of root causes.

EG: If we don’t count Presence Detection, hypothetically, we can eliminate over 10% of the complaints.

So I repeat my desire for ST to publish all known issues along with their priority, status, fix timeline, and workarounds.

That level of clarity could help each of us decide if SmartThings is right for us and our requirements at this time and when to realistically expect other features to be stable. (e.g., I get plenty of value out of the product and have never use the presence features. That’s helped me avoid a lot of headaches.).


BTW: As a slightly less automated way to disarm your home, consider the potential of my SmartApp in Beta…

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Pick any feature of ST. If you don’t count it knock another x% off of complaints. ??? The point is, BASIC things fail all of the time. So there is actually very little if anything that you can count on, other than it not working right.

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Contrary to your assessment, my experience (and, I presume the experience of a majority of Customers, because otherwise the Company would be on the Better Business Bureau watch list :wink: …), is the opposite:

My BASIC things do not fail most of the time. I’d say my fully functional BASIC functionality uptime is well above 80% … probably above 95%. (Where basic functionality = turning on/off devices, sensors (contact and motion) reporting events correctly and timely, lights linked to sensors work, and schedules firing close to on time, including sunset).

The Community has hashed out “general discontent” Topics over and over and over again. The thing is, we are a very small sample size.

I don’t have any analysis tools, but I’m guessing that there are no more than 100 “completely dissatisfied” unique postings (i.e., postings by unique Community Members), out of 3000 total Community Members, and out of tens of thousands of Customers. We have no scientifically valid sample.

This referenced Topic tries to do some analysis of Amazon Reviews (and, of course, the Mobile Apps are also reviewed on Apple Store, Google Play, etc.). I haven’t consulted Consumer Reports (have they reviewed?), but the tech press tends to give positive reviews (4 out of 5).

The Community here may have a negative bias because we: (a) push the product hard, and (b) have the technical knowledge and gadget experience to objectively have high expectations.

Not sure where I going with all this … I guess I’m saying that SmartThings’s priorities are likely not going to be significantly influenced by the small sample of consumers here in the Community. Like any company, they may focus on internal design goals (as Apple does – Steve Jobs is famous for discounting customer feedback), or mass-market research.

I’m in the same boat as you. Reliability and usability has been significantly worse for the past half year or so. It’s so upsetting too since SmartThings has so much potential. I love that they’re releasing V2, but at the same time I’m skeptical that it will resolve many of the current issues, especially since my SmartThings performance has been steadily declining since day 2. (I’ve had it for about a year now)

I’ve been using Wink on the side (sorry ST), and although its features and compatibility is far from what’s offered on SmartThings, at the end of the day it works, and the UI is amazing… two things I cannot say about SmartThings yet.

Personally, I am going to hold out on any more investments from SmartThings until feedback comes in about V2, and until the new Revolv is released. I have high hopes for Revolv now that Nest (Google) has purchased it. They already amazing products (Thermostat, DropCam, et al.) and Google has the cashflow and innovation power behind them (plus we all know Google is dying to get into the smart home space).

This type of thing is the caveat to being an early adopter though - sometimes we have to sacrifice performance and reliability and act as consumer guinea pigs.

80% qualifies as failing all the time…

It is what it is, caveat emptor

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It’s possible to have similar hopes for SmartThings, given the cashflow and innovation available from Samsung.

Of course, that is entirely dependent on your assessment of Samsung vs. Google for innovation and execution. I am ambivalent.

All I know is that since Samsung took over, SmartThings has been worse. I’m sure just correlation and not causation, likely caused by "growing pains, "but I did have high hopes for SmartThings when that took place and nothing has changed (that I can see).

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There are also days like this evening when 13 hues fired up without a glitch with my Hello Home scheduled “lights on at sunset”. And I am totally “hoping for bigger things” even though I get frustrated often. Motions were stuck for some time in the morning though. For me it’s more like @tgauchat’s statistics (may be a ltiny bit lower). Now its up to us to judge whether that’s fair, good or bad. Well there has been some really bad days like losing all control over the hues and harmony hub but will cut them a slack as they are still in lab.

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Astute observation, Jesse.

The causes are just as likely to be the organic growth the product is experiencing (and thus, scaling issues),

… vs. some unknown amount of, unfortunately, disruptive and distracting impact of the acquisition that, “temporarily”, exceeds any benefits possible in such a relatively short time. (i.e., based on “Big Corporate Time”).

I think SmartThings is working 90+% of the time but for a system that is controlling (sometimes critical) functions, its not good enough. Defining failure is subjective. To one person failure is defined as a total loss of control. To another it may be a delay in a triggered event by five seconds. I am guessing the majority of people are happy with their SmartThings but I also think that is highly dependent on what they use if for. Sure, tuning on a light at sunset mostly works and if it doesn’t fire at the exact time then who really cares? But for those of us using it for security, it is mostly a failure. This includes, slow triggering causing alarm systems to trigger. Delayed or false notifications of events when everyone is away from home. Quite frankly, if it weren’t for my independent security camera system I would have uninstalled ALL security related apps because I would be freaking out thinking someone is breaking in my house! At least with the cameras I can determine it to be yet another false alarm.

This may not be a fair comparison for SmartThings but I ask everyone here these questions; How would you feel if when your went to start your car there was a 10% chance it wouldn’t start? How about your refrigerator, would everyone be okay that every 10 days or so it stopped working? Or there was a 10% chance when you take a shower that the water would be cold? I say this because if any of these things (all non life threatening) failed we all would be VERY upset. For that reason SmartThings fails do to the same inconvenience. As I have said to support many times, unless SmartThings is reliable, it is nothing more than a toy (or a gadget to tinker with)

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Cars and refrigerators cost much more than $200 (the base price for a SmartThings kit).

I would like to see consumer electronics magazines rigorously tested and review ST on a feature by feature basis and see both individual and overall scores, like we can find for every other electronic gadget (phones, cameras, appliances).

Where’s Consumer Reports…?: Trusted name in reviews, right?

Well… ST is proud of their glowing reviews in many pupublications. Theses journalists don’t share the experiences described in this Topic?

http://blog.smartthings.com/tag/smartthings-review/

Cost vs value was not intended comparison, it was the reliability factor I was driving at. But if cost is to be compared here is another one. Lets say your $10 alarm clock failed 10% of the time. What would you do with that alarm clock? Yes, you through it away and buy something more reliable. It is just that simple. I guess if I only had $200 wrapped up in SmartThings it wouldn’t be that bad, but with all the devices plus the platform I am in it around $1,200. Still not the value of a car but most certainly a refrigerator.

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You bring up a good point. I’ve intentionally not complained at Amazon, Apple’s App Store, etc. I’ve tried to bring my complaints directly to ST or this community instead of to the public at large. Are you suggesting that because our complaints aren’t found there that they aren’t valid or simply that ST won’t take them seriously until we could McLain more loudly?

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I’m enjoying this discussion, but do keep in mind it’s just a thought and discussion exercise. My expertise is in Information Technology, not Business Strategy, and I definitely don’t have any view into SmartThings’s internal management or road-maps in order to make any statements with any authority.

In other words – I’m pulling this out of my :racehorse: :speak_no_evil:.


I’m “suggesting” that we don’t know enough about SmartThings’s Customer satisfaction, market strategy, and Samsung’s influence to know what proportion of influence the active Community Forum members have. Tyler1 (VP of Operations) reported to us that they have a 98% satisfaction rating for their Customer Support services (based on post-case emailed surveys). As per my above disclaimer, I have no qualifications to understand what that number implies about consumer’s opinion of the product overall.

And, I’m hypothesizing, just for the sake of discussion, that the Community could possibly be dismissed as an inaccurate representation of the target market; or just a low priority during this particular period of growing pains.

As I mentioned in earlier posts, I am “aware” that I may have as little as 80% reliability with SmartThings, though I’m pretty sure it is higher. This number is coincidentally very significant, since you’ve probably hear of the 80/20 Rule (The Pareto Principle), right? :wink:

In this 80/20 proportion, are we, the active Community, the 20% of people that are key market influencers? Or are we the less important 20% “difficult to please market segment” that would take 80% of SmartThings’s ongoing effort that wouldn’t be cost-effective to focus on? Everyone we interact with at SmartThings may, to some extend, believe that latter statement; but I also think that they sincerely believe the this is only a temporary issue until they have sufficient resources to be able to make “everything and everyone” top priority. That is much easier to say than to execute.

I’d like to reassure everyone here that your feedback is always listened to here if not always responded to. I’d also like to poll the group here as to whether fixes from late last week have done anything for you in terms of platform performance - speed and reliability. We are seeing good metrics to this effect but real world experience trumps charts and graphs.

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