Everyone has their own priorities for peace of mind. I personally use a separate security system as SmartThings does not meet my own minimum requirements for reliability and reporting. I do use it for things like monitoring whether a guestroom window was left open when rain is expected.
There are many discussions in the forums about how people evaluate SmartThings as a possible security system for their own needs. These might be of interest. This one, in particular, discusses some of the features missing from SmartThings that the purpose built security systems do typically have.
I would hold off to see if they ever get around to fixing it.
Before V2 came out, mine worked pretty well.
Now I get notifications more than 2 hours late sometimes, if they come at all.
I havenāt tried it in the last few weeks but the last time I had my alarm working I couldnāt turn it off.
It would say it was in the app but as soon as one of us triggered a motion sensor, the siren would go off.
Iāve seen this mentioned not too long ago here in the forum. Iād look into that before you go any further.
Also take a look at all the recent reviews of the app (I tunes has it as 1 1/2 stars) and the hub (Amazon is down to 3 stars the last time I looked. It would probably be lower but there are several reviews where the reviewer has only ever reviewed ST items. )
I donāt see how anyone could expect a cloud based device to run their security. I donāt care if itās Samsung, Apple, Microsoft or Google. Doesnāt matter who you are, networks are awesome, but one thing they arenātā¦ 100% reliable. Donāt put a network in between you and your critical safety. I donāt care what the brand isā¦
My only concern is fire. My Nests can independently alarm without network or even power (hardwired version). Their networking is a bonus.
I live in a small town, so security is not a big deal for me, but when I do it, all I will do is capture video. Stopping a thief is only about making it look like you are harder to steal from (stops some of the amateurs and some of the proās), and justice after they smash and grab (all amateurs and proās alike). No one pays attention to sirens anymore, just like emails and telephone calls. Once it reaches a certain level of ānoiseā it gets ignored. If I lived in a high security area, Iād pay the extra for a dedicated alarm system. Iād just hope to get lucky on the siren, and get my police report faster (since they arrive a bit sooner after the burglary is complete).
BTW: I think itās ok for ST (and any cloud based hub) to put itself out there as a security solution, you just have to understand what you are getting. $99 is not a price I expect to pay for guarding me and my loved ones with 100% certainty. I expect to pay more for that.
Last thing: If I were ST, I would beef up the false alarm checking on sirens. Donāt let them sound unless some confirmation is received. In other words, force a recheck of the condition that caused the alarm, and then document in logs/activity what positively caused a critical notification to fire. Deep dive into why a couple of peopleās fired in the middle of the night. And then put big disclaimers on putting safety into the hands of a $99 hub that relies so heavily on user managed networks.
I partly agree in that we need to look more at the local processing of certain HA routines etc locally as not to rely on your internet connections for things intrinsic to security however networks I disagree with your statement networks are not being reliable. As a someone who builds and maintains networks around reliability I can assure you can get them reliable enough (nothing is 100%). Anyone can leave a window open, forget to arm the house this is just as unreliable if not more.
Everything these days has a network whether you like it or not, some are more reliable than others. For instance your car and its security relies on a networks such as CANBUS, this is a lightweight protocol and very reliable however due to its design not that secure as a few car manufacturers have recently found out, this will not stop people using these networks as the benefits are far greater than the issues, in fact they have increased security to cars massively over the years. The nests themselves use more than one network and the the alarm notification uses this network.
We can start looking at the past and physical security such as the old fashioned key but one could argue is this is of the most insecure devices around. In a system that can always tell you the status of all objects or even if your network is down you can take immediate action to reolve.
It is true that people are less reliable than networks, and who manages the network where these hubs are installed? Us. And speaking as someone who has taken my own network down and done some dumb things, I can positively state that networks are as reliable as the effort put into them. Itās not ST fault, just something to consider in the design.
Comparing this system to keys isnāt fair. No one here wants to do that, this is clearly better.
And yes, the benefits do outweigh the negatives in connecting to the networkā¦ just not relying on it. My system is largely built around smart notification. Garage door is open when I go to bed, etc. No siren, but no open garage door all night. (And I can close it from bed, and Iām quite confident I know when itās closed). Will it be a problem if itās open one time? No, just an annoyance.
On my house cutting the cable line therefore network would be trivial. I think local processing in this use case is critical. In this case the network could tell me nothing about my device except that it was offline. Hard to know what to do in that case but calling the police isnāt an option.
Love my hub, just not ready to use it as an alarm yet myself.
All valid points and I agree entirely, this system I see as an addition to what I already had but reporting status and being able to do a few other neat things on top, if they donāt trigger I am only in the same situation as I was before ST.
Locks is the big issue here and I would be very cautious about having these work on cloud based routines such as some presence awareness routines if they are protecting anything of value such as your household possessions. I am working on an outside gate lock controlled by zwave relay module securing mainly our bins however this gets left open by accident most of the time anyway so this feel like a worthwhile risk.
Big alarm companies are not necessarily better - I had a 2 year contract with the #1 security company in North America with mobile service as I was living in the country. Found out that for at least 6 of those months into the contract, my house was not being monitored.
This system is not $99 buck and stop saying it is $99 - If you compare a complete formally monitored security system to the investment to do similar with this unit plus+++ smoke, motions, door sensors, locksā¦maybe camerasā¦The investment is same or more to get started. Therefore, I expect it to perform as advertised which includes security capability. Arenāt they supposed to be adding a monitoring service? Sounds pretty āsecurityā oriented to me.
The final piece - Add a cel module and that would eliminate any risk of network downtime that calls back to the monitoring system or your own phone. End of story.
Well since nothing is being accomplished as of yet for the said topic why does it matter if said topic is hijacked? Since the new iOS app things have going from good to worse and still wo being able to add users. Pretty lame.
Itās on topic. I keep hearing how this is $99 and why expect so much like the add users feature as this is a toy. I didnāt buy this to be a toy and such comments are counter productive .
I always hope every time I see Ben and Tim (and other ST employees) take a slap that they have thick skin. The community really enjoys and needs ST presence. Donāt take it personal but keep caring, thatās really hard to do, I know. I also know itās presumptuous of me to say so, but since we are hijacking this thread, I think Iām ok. Great companies have great communities, and itās not by accident. This community is a great one.
I would absolutely agree with the going from bad to worse. Iām hoping the next release of the app along with the recent platform update will fix all my problems and get me back to the reliability I experienced after my migration to the v2 hub and app.
I was just about singing praises to ST but now Iām unfortunately back to cursing them when almost nothing works the way itās supposed to.
Iād much rather sing their praises and recommend them to everyone I talk to, but Iād also like to have no bills. Iām afraid i might be wishing for both of those for quite some time.
I think smartthings is currently a half-baked security system. That said I use it since I live in a low crime area. The lack of time delay as mentioned by Lgkahn with SHM has led to many more false alarms that is very irritating for me and my wife. Once the alarm goes off with the aeon sirens, it take up to a minute to shut off the sirens by switching mode to āIām back.ā I now manually turn off the system with app before entering the house. I bought the securifi key fob which works well with a well written smartapp. But it is thick and clunky appearing. (Aeon has a new one which if it works with ST looks much better.) Even dedicated ST presence sensor doesnāt change modes fast enough to avoid setting off alarms. I didnāt have as many false alarms with version 1 hub and using smart Alarm smartapp in the past year. I hope that changes soon. As others have said, at least temporarily weāre going backwards but I still have hope weāll go in the right direction (soonish).
Remove the native ST presence from your routines & apps (if you have any), them completely delete the ST presence profile. Next, sign up with Life360 and add yourself and your wife. Then use the Life360 Connect app in ST but make sure you select both users from the beginning. Now go ahead and add presence users to routines and apps. This method has worked pretty flawlessly for me over the past week.
Iāve been using Life360 for my husband and myself as the work around for presence detecting. It works for us two, but Iāve been completely unable to add my sister or an aunt in SmartThings Life360 Connect. I want to add them because they will be house/cat sitting for us. I can add them in the Life360 app, but in SmartThings Life360 Connect when I try to add them, I get an error stating āFailed to save page; listUsersPageā. Life360 is a bare minimum work around that works for 2 people for me and certainly not an end-all-be-all. Also, I tried uninstalling Life360 Connect (as well as their app) to see if I could start fresh and add everyone. I get the error āAn unexpected error occurredā when trying to uninstall. I am SO hopeful we are soon able to add users directly to the SmartThings app soon. I also am really hopeful that other bugs and glitches do not take nearly as long as this one to fix. Another update from SmartThings about the progress would be fabulous.
Have you tried deleting both users from the life 360 app in smartthings then re-add all the users at once. i had to do that to get my daughter on there after only having me and my wife.
