Just my 5c after owning smartthings over the year, DO NOT PURCHASE AND THINK IT WILL STAY WORKING, after you set everything up it will work till they do update and then you will have to troubleshot and re-sync 70% of your devices, No need for comments here, for you who own it you know its true, Im just tired of keep on changing settings , time on move on
I would rather say BE AWARE what you are getting in to because now I have hundreds of little devices around my house that I would have never bought if my dang friend hadn’t bought me a smartthings hub for my birthday.
(I never had any connectivity issues with devices)
6 Likes
:
3 Likes
Atlanta should never have bought themselves an airport. The whole dang thing was down for an entire day
14 Likes
Hey, I just found a nickel.
2 Likes
Goodbye!
1 Like
As my system creeps closer to 350 devices a more accurate statement has never been written.
3 Likes
Aw man, I’ve owned my ST hub for about 2.5 years and my opinion is still worth only $0.02.
8 Likes
no comments eh - good to know
maintenance is indeed required. It is irritating when I suspect the decrease in function is pushed through a hub update. So hard to prove.
Surely the grass is greener over there.
Respectfully, that’s only one part of the picture. Luck is another big part of the picture. And the specific devices chosen matter as well.
There are many people who have posted to the forums who had really well set up systems that just stopped working one day because SmartThings ( or another company) had changed something on their side. This has happened multiple times to multiple people.
I’m glad that your system has continued to run well for you. I don’t doubt that at all. But a lot of it has to do with luck.
Just today there was an announcement that one of the most popular cameras in use with SmartThings in the US, Blink, is shutting down their integration with SmartThings. This week. 
As you know, SmartThings broke voiceover navigation in the official mobile app last April. They’ve said accessibility is important to them, they said they’re going to fix it, but here we are, eight months and several app releases later, and it still isn’t fixed. That’s not because I had my system set up incorrectly.
There have been similar issues with the Samsung television integration, which one would think would be a High priority. It worked, then it broke, they acknowledged that it was broken, but six weeks later no fix has yet arrived.
Same thing with battery reporting for zigbee devices.
So, again, I am glad that your system has worked well for you and I hope that continues. But it’s not simply a matter of customer knowledge and expertise.
Submitted with respect.
http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Bug:_First_Reports
1 Like
I really agree with @JDRoberts. I’m coming up to my 5th year using ST, I started in Dec of 2013, and my collection of devices had grown well over 200 at one point, but now i’m still using ST but i’m down to around 90 devices. I’ve had tons of integrations with 3rd party systems, and been burned by integrations (Blink & Netatmo) where the fault might be ST or the other party. I’ve used almost all of the different motion and open/close sensors out there from Zwave/Zigbee etc…
I still really enjoy ST, but it is just so unstable at times having to reboot the hub or certain devices falling on or off the mesh network, i’ve used repeaters and optimized by network setup but it just doesn’t really help.
It is not the true home automation that I was hoping, wishing for when I purchased it, and I’ve had friends who use Wink or other HA and don’t have the power, the openess to connect all these devices, but almost all of them are just more reliable, less maintenance and less frustration than ST.
I’m slowing phasing out ST as I find replacements and work around, but people who get into the ST ecosystem really need to understand, it is a HA hobby and fun, tinkering project. it isn’t a consumer grade, reliable setup once and ignore it HA system.
4 Likes
Agree with you @thrash99er. I joined ST almost the same time as you and I don’t remember there’s a month I don’t have to do something with ST. This is definitely not a set it and leave it type of system. I don’t hate it but it’s not for everyone.
2 Likes
Is someone going full lemonade again? Didn’t I warn the community before about never going full lemonade.
I’m taking my car in for service next week. Seems it can’t go more than a few months without needing something looked at or adjusted or done.
It cost $18,000.
I have a SmartThings system at which I’m throwing all kinds of novel things, integrations that were not written into the original system. I have to look at things every few months to ensure it runs optimally.
The ST hub cost me $50.
7 Likes
Wow, either someones priorities are not right, or that is the crappiest car in the world to cost that much for service every few months.
2 Likes
I see 3 different sets of folks out here:
-
Those that have had very few issues with their ST integration and the reliability of everything working as expected with some minor breaks / fixes / limited downtime.
-
Those that have had continued issues on one or more specific fail points (ie: @JDRoberts and the voiceover functionality almost the entire year, or people who have never had their Mobile presence functioning appropriately), but the rest of the ST integration for the most part works and assists in their day to day home automation goals.
-
Then you have the 3rd set of people who have had no success with ST from day one, whether this is self induced or platform related issues or a combination of both.
Sometimes, these people want to go as cheap as possible with something that is not officially supported and then wonder why it doesn’t work. I’m not saying that’s always the case. Some people purchase devices that are raved about out here, only to find out that the devices are crap in their environment. I have seen so much in the way of negative reviews on just the ST Motion and Multisensors in the last month. In my environment, I have never had a single issue with any of these from functionality to battery life. Is that to say that they did something with a generational release of these devices, that they no longer work the same way, perhaps. You also have people that just don’t want to read before going out and purchasing stuff.
I’m sorry, but I am a believer that with Home Automation comes homework that you are required to do before you build any environment of things in this space. Does this guarantee 100% success, absolutely not, but doing the appropriate due diligence ahead of time can save a lot of time, effort and pain. How many people spend months having devices go offline before they find out that their hub sitting right next to the router is causing an issue or that Zigbee and 2.4ghz are fighting with each other and it’s a 2 minute fix. Not all of you will agree with me and that’s ok. I’m not here to argue or create a debate, but a large portion (NOT ALL) of people’s issues with SmartThings are self induced. Whether it be lack of investment budget (I want hue bulbs but I’m not willing to buy the Hue Bridge) and I will just directly integrate my bulbs with SmartThings (your problem now) and then get upset when something goes wrong, or takes the chance with some unsupported device that works great for another user and then gets mad because they can’t get a resolution to their problem. Then you have your overly complex integrations and that’s great that SmartThings allows you to do it, but hey, bigger isn’t always better, is it? Live and learn.
There’s is no doubting that SmartThings has some shortcomings here and there and some challenges to overcome and there are some large legitimate issues, but the one thing that is a common theme amongst all these people, even the ones screaming, I HATE ST, 
, they are still out here posting and complaining and using ST and have yet to leave the product behind? Why do you think that is?
I watch and I observe and I see one person posting about 6 different issues within 1 week of purchasing ST all the way down to "I didn’t see the welcome code card’, hmmmm. And yet, people in this community including myself are willing to help everyone out, but again, to me if you are going to get into home automation, and what ST allows you to integrate, it’s not just plug n play if you begin to delve into the world of custom SmartApps and Device Handlers, but it requires that you spend the time to do all the homework and take the quizzes for a better chance to have a successful working and reliable environment. For the standard consumer that never joins this community, they are buying the ST Hub, and a few Works with SmartThings devices (A Thermostat and a few bulbs maybe) and an Echo or Google Home to compliment things and they have that basic setup that SmartThings markets towards. Not figuring out how to integrate a garage door opener, or splice these wires into a device and make it function this way or reverse engineering this to do this.
I have had my share of issues with SmartThings, albiet a very small handful of things, but I also like to think that the money I have spent on my network, the way I laid out my devices throughout my house, the countless hours of research and reviews that I put in myself ahead of time and not relying on others to answer every single question, and the purchasing of quality devices (yes I’m a believer that you get what you pay for) and mostly (not all) supported devices or devices where there are a ton of community members using in the event that there is that occasional issue led to the overall success and reliability of my ST / Nest / Hue / Echo/ Bose environment.
Blink is today’s example of pushing people over the edge. This is where I agree with @JDRoberts when luck does have something to do with what you buy or don’t buy. But after all the crying and moaning is over, everyone of these Blink customers will still be an ST customer at the end of the day. I feel their pain, but this is the world we live in with home automation. This isn’t the first or last occurrence of something like this.
I’m not interested in debating with you or hearing your rebuttals. I’m simply sharing what I have observed and witnessed over the last year and a few months of my being an ST customer and just felt like sharing this with all of you. I know some of you just won’t be able to contain yourselves and will have to make your points known to counter whatever you disagree with, but please save your energy and apply it to something else more positive for the holidays.
If you truly hate ST, stop posting here in the community, find a replacement product that is better suited for you and enjoy your home automation in that environment.
Happy Holidays All!
4 Likes
Holy wall of text!
I’m in the “never had a real issue with ST camp”.
But I will say, it has many massive negatives: this whole system feels like a hobbyist project. The app has barely improved, even becoming worse in a few cases (that stupid full-screen bar to adjust things). It requires an internet connection to work. Built-in support for devices is almost always lacking in features compared to community device handlers. It doesn’t run most things locally, requiring an internet connection, hub updates can not be blocked (do I not own the device?)…Oh and did I mention it requires an internet connection? It’s completely retarded for a home automation system to require an internet connection or any connection outside the home.
Yeah, I like it, but it has many flaws.
1 Like
You missed a group of folks…
- The hey see ya and can I buy your stuff super cheap? Crowd.
I’m definitely in that one…
Lol
4 Likes
But with this approach you still find yourself in group 1 with those discounted prices / trades that you manage to get your hands on. 
There are probably several more groups.
One is those who try SmartThings, find it insufficient for their needs for whatever reason, and move most of their automations on to something else, while still keeping SmartThings for a few specific purposes.
They don’t love the product, they don’t hate the product, they use what works and move on from what doesn’t. 
2 Likes