Smartthings: I'm sick of this sh*t! Shape up!

Devices & Integrations
111

I strongly feel that Shake is really not an acceptable user interface, imho…

  1. It is not intuitive, nor is it labelled (i.e., there is no way to know that shake is available to perform the described function… the Things screens do not say “Shake to view labels”). To the best of my experience, I can think of only a handful of apps that use shake anywhere in their user interfaces (one example, perhaps, are music players that use shake to switch to a random track: If this is intuitive, then I would expect shake to cause SmartThings to turn on a random switch…).

  2. Android devices are not required to have shake as a mandatory hardware function. In an extreme case, we can be running the SmartThings app from inside Chrome or via an Android emulator (“Andy” or “BlueStacks”). My PC gets a tad upset if I pick it up and shake it (and that wouldn’t work anyway, since my PC has no vibration sensor).

  3. The gesture adds a non-trivial step to what should be a single fluid activity: i.e., (a) view the devices, (b) select device. Instead it is (a) view the devices, (b) can’t figure out which device is which, (c) shake until labels appear, (d) try to remember all the labels because they disappear after a few moments, (e) trust your memory, faith, and select a device.

  4. Shake is not accessibility (ADA) compliant. Does iOS, Android, and Windows provide an Accessibility option to provide an ADA compliant way to trigger shake?

  5. It is reasonable to wish to take an old phone or tablet and attach it to the wall in your home as a SmartThings “home visualizer and controller”. But, except for the rare earthquakes here in San Francisco, it is not possible to shake my entire wall.

Seriously, am I being facetious? I’ll let my peers comment…

My personal perspective is that if an interface can be made more accurate and useful while reducing operational complexity, then just do it already. I brought up my “shake isn’t a gesture” complaint over 18 months ago or more. Why is form beating function in the interface?

Thanks!
…CP/Terry.

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