This is exactly how Microsoft started. Some would say it still applies…
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The business model of releasing “less than stable” products is more prevalent than ever before.
Kickstarter and IndieGogo (and individual pre-production sales sites) are considered completely normal by the tech gadget media industry.
Most of those products are substantially delayed, and the rest are prematurely delivered.
The second generation Pebble watch (“Time”) has already exceeded $12 Million in pre-sales (ahem, “funding”) with 25 days to go, it could hit $30 million. They’re likely to deliver, I think, but this sets up very misleading expectations for projects/campaigns that look and sound almost as slick, yet are based on unproven technology or inexperienced “creators”.
Consumers are either naive and/or are willing to be Guinea Pigs (and the consumers actually pay, not the for-profit producers, pay for that “privilege”).
SmartThings may or may not be at a sufficient quality level to be comparable to a traditionally released product / system. Regardless, they and many many companies these days benefit from “early-adopter enthusiasm”. That’s fine … perhaps SmartThings couldn’t have been “born” without the early adopters. Buy it takes effort to maintain this goodwill.
Thankfully, SmartThings is expending and expanding a great deal of effort…
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I’ve had ST for nearly a year. It was a little glitchy at first, but I understood that as the cost for being at “bleeding edge”. Things stabilized somewhat, so I added more devices. Things were glitchy again, so I thought maybe I hit the max that ST supported. Again things got a little better.
So now we’re at the present day. It has gotten so much worse, I don’t even know where to start. Some devices routinely need to be deleted and re-added. This is extremely painful if the devices are used in SmartApps. The lag is there so often, I almost count on it. I’ve read the lag should be sub-second, but it can be 5, 10, or even up to 30 seconds. I’ve been told to contact support when the lag exists, but they never see anything and point out their attempt to be more transparent. SmartApps are not smart. They don’t fire when supposed to. A rules engine would probably be a better addition, but I guess I only dreaming and hoping something fixes the issues. Geofencing (presence detection) is a great idea - my phone knows where I’m at, but ST seems lost. The user access model - ever heard of permissions???
I spend 5 hours or so a week trying to troubleshoot ST. Sometimes rebooting fixes it. Sometimes power cycling fixes it. Rarely, if ever, does a repair z-wave network fix anything noticeable, but support likes this option (I feel like this is the new, have you rebooted or is it plugged in). Trying to figure out why a SmartApp worked yesterday and is jacked up today is so tedious and cumbersome it’s almost not worth it anymore.
The status page for services is nice, but misleading. Everytime it says that a small number of users is affected - I am always affected. Is the pool of users really that small??? When it says that “no incidents reported today” I know that is a mistake (or downright intentionally deceptive) because I have emails referring to issues (but they apparently didn’t make the highlight reel, better known at the status page). The specific set of services that are affected don’t accurately identify the issues. I have numerous emails stating the new transparency. Then be transparent, tell us what the problem really is/was. Explain why the same problems keep coming back.
I have/had high hopes for ST. My support is beginning to wane. While I like the idea of what ST tried to accomplish, I can no longer look past the glaring weaknesses of the platform. ST is unreliable. Why do I say that? I can manually control all of my devices 95% of the time. I have never been able to control all of my devices all at the same time… never (they are all supported devices). Events trigger 90-95% of the time. SmartApps work 80% of the time. Lag free about 25% of the time. Tonight, 0% of the SmartApps work (and guess what, my specific issue is known and is not listed as an outage in any way, shape, or form on the status page - maybe it was transparent and I couldn’t see it). And all of this has nothing to do with my internet connection. It’s stable, reliable, low ping times, and the speeds are top notch. After a year, I would have expected things to be better, but instead, they have gotten worse. My stuff is not mission critical - no one is going to die from it, but I don’t trust it anymore. It has proven to be a waste of money and time. When it screws up (even more frequent since 1/1/15), and my wife notices (boy is she observant), she refers to it as “your DumbThings is messed up again”.
I love technology. This is an easy sell for me. But I want to switch away from ST. Any suggestions? Maybe Hub v2.0 is the savior. I don’t know, but something needs to be done. I’m hoping Google gets it right with Nest. I want someone to come out with a simple, reliable platform, Really, I am just hoping someone can get it right. As much as ST has moved forward, it has also moved backwards. I would guess virtually all of ST’s customers are reasonably tech savvy and are more than willing to accept some growing pains here or there. But the pains need to subside. I have seen brief stints when it reasonably worked as advertised, but those times are few and far between.
Last thought… maybe this post is too accurate and negative, and regardless of what anyone thinks, this is how I feel, this is what I believe to be true, and therefore I share this publicly. And that’s the problem. ST should have never let it get to this point.
Just fix it. Just fix the DamnThing.
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@johnlcox We all (regular users, power users, average users, experts and veterans) feel the same pain. Let’s give them a chance and the benefit of doubt that things will get worse before it gets better. We all have waited so long so let’s wait a little longer with the promised solution of all issues in this entire world - one pill that cures all - the Vitamin 2. Sorry, I meant v2. Let’s keep up the hope…
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I hear you on security, I would have uninstalled everything too, if it wasn’t for the camera. I ended up buying a Dropcam for inside the house specifically due to false alarms. Sent the cops out the first time it happened, because in addition to the Motion alerts, my switches in the log showed “physical” movement instead of “digital” and I freaked out…I figured if a thief was in the house, they’d turn on a switch, too. Turns out it was a bug…
My sirens go off maybe 50% of the time when the system lags and doesn’t sense me being home, when in reality it should be 100%.
All that said, I’m still holding out hope. I get annoyed because it’s nowhere near perfection yet, but with over 50 “things”, I’m too invested for it to not get better 
Right now there are a couple of good options to provide Similar functionality to SmartThings more reliably, but you’re looking at $5,000 and up. Maybe a lot up. If you want to spend that kind of money, Control4 is worth looking at, as is Creston and Insteon. Have the network professionally installed. These are solid, reliable systems.
But if you’re looking at something in a comparable price range to SmartThings, there are pluses and minuses to every competitor, and no one standout.
My own personal guess (just a guess) is that by summer 2016 there will be a strong HomeKit/Insteon plug and play offering, and that will generate competition from a couple of competitors. I do expect Samsung/SmartThings to be one of the competitors. Nest, maybe. If Honeywell and Philips decide to work together, that could be another, although I think they need a tablet maker in the mix. Honeywell/Philips/Amazon could be formidable.
No way to know for sure. What is for sure is that right now you can get reliability, but at a high cost.
If you don’t want to pay that cost, I’d stick to the use cases that are working for you now and wait and see.
Just my opinion.
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@smart I’m all for false hope. The world thrives on it. As for “let’s give them a chance”, how long should we wait? How long have you waited?
I think you’re missing the point. Waiting hasn’t been the problem. I have waited, patiently. I’ve kept reasonably quiet, sought help when necessary, and shared when asked. It’s just that the waiting has yielded such little improvement that it has turned into frustration. I think over the last year, the overall stability and reliability should have made great leaps forward. I’m not looking for perfect, just noticeably better. Overall, I can’t make that claim here. So therefore, I’m tired of waiting.
I want accountability. In my profession, I can’t release a product that is so flawed and make micro-leaps forward and not be called to task. I thought the transparency mantra would mean more than it has. I thought the truth would be more forthcoming. Be open, be honest. Admit the shortcomings and publicly state a plan to address the issues.
And by the way, I wouldn’t have posted a damn thing if I didn’t want them to fix it (and yes, this means more waiting). And you are right, things have gotten worse before they have gotten better (that’s what I said). And your point is??? I’m not looking for the magic pill (or vitamin) - I don’t subscribe to that train of thought. I do want ST to listen and fix it.
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I can’t believe someone just put Insteon and Crestron in the same sentence… 
Seriously though, I’ve lived through the dark days of Control4, where their controllers were constantly rebooting, locking up, buggy as all hell and survived.
NO AUTOMATION SOLUTION for the home is PERFECT.
I think we need some sort of SmartThings barometer. A Doomsday clock so to speak.
The real question is this, is SmartThings getting better, worst or staying the same.
Break it down into the areas of concern:
-IDE and Development
-Hub and Connectivity
-Zigbee Devices
-Zwave Devices
-Other Devices
-Cloud Integration
-3rd Party integration
-Overall system stability
What’s your rating for each area? Not on a scale, but is it getting better or worse or the same?
I really can honestly say ST is getting better on almost all areas, except for system stability, which they are documenting the issues and working behind the scenes to fix.
These are growing pains, and they are painful to get through. Leave if you want, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Stay if you want as well.
My patience is wearing out, and I went through my quiet phase which meant I should have left, but now I’m staying and seeing this through. The promise is there, progress is happening, albeit at a pace way slower then anyone wants.
Ultimately, we all have tons of time and money into this platform. Will it pay off? Who knows. The question is if you lost your desire to be apart of the SmartThings platform, just put your hub up for sale on E-bay and switch… Otherwise, lets try to provide good feedback and help them move this platform forward and focus on what are the key pains end users and community developers are experiencing.
Just my two cents…
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Only put Insteon in there because they are HEAVILY investing in HomeKit. They need the big leap forward to catch up, but HomeKit would be it if it all works.
And a professionally installed Insteon system has good reliability, I think.
Control4 sucked in the beginning, but they’re 5 generations past the beginning now.
Agree absolutely that no system is perfect.
@pstuart : I don’t judge any lame duck system for trends. I expect most of the resources will go into v2.
For right now I want handsfree plug and play voice control, without requiring IP addressable nodes. Since Ivee is awful and I have my own reasons for not wanting UBI, that leaves me with a choice between Insteon with cortana or SmartThings with Siri texting to IFTTT. I’m willing to toss out everything and start over in a year and a half, so that also affects my decisions. For me, ST was a better fit.
Somebody else will have other priority use cases, so may make a different choice.
@johnlcox oops! What I can say as I retreat to my trench with my head bowed sulking! I absolutely have no right to judge your frustration level. I am very well in the same boat but I want to give these decent guys a chance. They have always been for us when we needed them (was fruitful or not does not matter). I think this is the time when they need the community the most. What’s the harm in standing by them a few more days with our feedbacks, ideas, suggestions and a little bit of Luv and motivation and of course the rants and curses. Call me a sentimental fool. That’s who I am and the reason I stand by them. My stakes are high too. If they lose (hope not) I loose thousands of dollars…
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Just giving you crap… I’ve been with Control4 for 5 years and dropped 1000x (or more) into it then I have with ST.
HomeKit, Google / Nest, Microsoft Home, Netgear, Target Spot, and whatever other future hub / HA / IoT platform might come into the future, is just that, the future.
Who has Insteon professionally installed, BTW? Isn’t that an oxymoron, Insteon is sold as DIY.
Did you mean professionally installed Crestron? Even that has issues. I’ve seen 2 year long implementations that ultimately failed miserably and the cost was well over 2 million to install in a high end home.
No solution is perfect. I had to reboot all my Control4 controllers last night because announcements stopped working and I couldn’t isolate the issue.
You think ST’s app loading is slow? Try my C4 app that takes over 3 minutes to load in my project (which is huge, even after I removed all my media library from it)
The coolest thing about SmartThings is you are working directly with them instead of a dealer who has to play middle(person).
The worst thing about SmartThings is you are working directly with them and so is everyone else.
I would love to know if any of the people who have complained they are done with SmartThings would pay 2k / day to have an ST support person fly out and help fix their systems?
What would you pay to make this go away and have it work better?
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A few days… no problem. Weeks… maybe. Months… no.
I lose too. But at some point you cut your losses.
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ST has so many issues that I doubt v2 is going to do much to solve the majority of the problems. But I admit I don’t know enough to REALLY know that. I am speculating that v2 will only handle basic functions such as when door opens, do this. I figure all the higher level app control will still remain in the cloud. I doubt v2 will solve any of the problems with the APP which is the main control for the platform including push/text notifications. When the new hub comes out are we expected to just plunk down more money, not only to purchase the hub, but also the ongoing monthly fees? (Being an early adopter that was one thing that was promised, at the level I bought into, there would be no monthly fees. I don’t know if I will cough up anymore (buy in) money when the current state of system is circling the drain.
So to any ST powers that happen to be reading the thread;
First, make the existing platform stable
Second, Rewrite the entire app so it doesn’t feel and work like a piece meal afterthought. (At least get a handle on all the apps. Too many copies of copies tweaked here and there and splattered all over the place most people can’t find them. I could go on and on but I digress. FIX THE DAMN APP!
Unless these two things happen I doubt v2 will do little to solve anything other than a few basic trigger delays. The app will still tied to the cloud and all the control issues we have today will still be front and center tomorrow.
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Great point. In most areas things have improved, some more than others, but improved. All with the exception of reliability, which seems to have gotten worse. And unfortunately, their service level is how they will ultimately be judged as a business.
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Depends where you live-- Lots of small local security or home entertainment installers will professionally install Insteon as an add-on, usually for lighting control. Insteon has some certified installers as well, although not a lot.
But again, I agree, nothing’s perfect. And I’m not willing to pay high installation or maintenance fees for convenience.
I have a professionally installed/monitored security system, works great, near perfect reliability. Not a mesh network, not wifi. Works if the power’s out. But while I’m willing to pay a premium for those use cases, I’m not for lighting control, and I don’t care if I have multiple systems.
I agree. ST is a highly customizable system but the maintenance is a deal breaker. When it works, it works great. But home automation is something that shouldn’t work most of the time. A car that doesn’t go when you step on the gas sometimes is useless because “most of the time” doesn’t cut it.
I have 34 things connected in my setup. Lights don’t come on on numerous occasions, or there is a long delay. Lights don’t go off when they’re supposed to. I’ve put so much time and money into all this and sometimes at the end the day, I tell myself what has it been for if flipping the light switch manually is less stressful.
If you subscribe to the feed at http://status.smartthings.com/ you’ll get notified of performance issues and downtime. Just be prepared because it happens a lot.
ST has the best customer service of any company I’ve ever worked with. I chat with them regularly but if the product doesn’t work I can’t say that it matters much.
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The same here, my smart home is 40% smart. All GE Link lights are intermittent. The only think that always work is my look. 
@sierralx - ok, you get the Best Use of Emoji Award for the quarter. That made me laugh out loud. (Perhaps it was the wine)
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Here’s why I keep the hope…
