Android Phone as a speaker?

[JDRoberts]

@mike_aval

I suppose then i’ll make a post dedicated to the inadequacies of the app. The app is basically developed for developers with ultra simple/limited capabilities out of the box. Feels more like working with an arduino than a finished product.

That makes sense. I put up a somewhat similar thread about a year and a half ago when I was personally feeling really frustrated about not being able to recommend the platform to friends who weren’t already strongly technical.

SmartThings starting to feel like Homeseer?

I have several friends who are interested in SmartThings because they have echo and want to expand those capabilities. These are technically savvy people, what I call “second adopters.” They already use IFTTT. They don’t mind some set up, but they have busy lives and they don’t want to tinker or go to the forums to figure out how to do something. They are expecting echo-type simplicity and they’re obviously not getting it. None of them are going to the “marketplace” tab because they assume that that’s where they would find add-ons for purchase. It doesn’t make sense to them that you go to the marketplace to set up a device you already own. None of them can figure out the lighting wizard. It’s OK as they set up the very first rule, but then they don’t understand what to do if they want …

( I should add that the one big change since that thread was created is that there is now a community – created wiki.

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=ThingsThatAreSmart_Wiki )

Anyway, Smartthings is marketed as an easy-to-use plug-and-play system, and it’s neither of those. It’s very powerful and flexible, but that’s not the same thing. But that’s a different conversation than seeing if there’s a voice notification method that would meet your use case.