Guess it doesn’t hurt to ask…
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These forums are full of dedicated, innovative individuals who WANT SmartThings to succeed. It’s very rare that people just give up and move on. However just looking at some of the comments, you can tell people are dissatisfied. There are more threads where people are looking for alternatives. There are more threads where people are outright selling their existing gear. And there are far fewer threads where people are genuinely excited by the new and cool things they could be doing - instead the forums are filled with questions and frustrations around basic functionality like accessing the app, or having scheduled events trigger.
We want the joy back. We want a platform that can be used to do Magic Stuff. Please focus on stability for the back end and front end, and then expand from there.
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I’m on my way over to check it out!
Don’t do it… you have been warned!
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Maybe I’m just confused, but for me “stability” always means the same thing: a feature that works on Monday also works on Tuesday. Or even better, a feature that works in October also works in November. And it doesn’t crash in between. 
The technical definition that engineers use for control systems is:
The stability of a system relates to its response to inputs or disturbances. A system which remains in a constant state unless affected by an external action and which returns to a constant state when the external action is removed can be considered to be stable.
A System which produces different results for the same external actions (including the lack of actions) is considered unstable.
I don’t see why that would be any different for the backend and the mobile app. If the person does exactly the same thing they did yesterday (including doing nothing) does the system produce the same result? And does the system remain operational throughout without requiring an unscheduled restart?
Or did I misunderstand the context?
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same here… rebuilding smart apps and routines every two days to make them work is not stable… The system in my opinion has about 50% stability. Based on the fact that I seem to have about a 50-60 chance that any given smart app or routine will work correctly… Not very good. If there was any other system with the given flexibility for the number of supported devices, and both zwave and zigbee youd have already seen a mass exodus.
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Not to put words in @slagle’s mouth, but I interpreted his response to mean that their work on back-end stability (scaling, scheduler, cloud-hub hybrid) is vastly different and/or mostly distinct from their work on the mobile App.
yes, thanks Terry.
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Semantics. I’m suggesting SmartThings focus on the stability of their experience.
Give us back the fun. Make it so that we see the platform as an opportunity, not something to be wrestled with to provide the basic functionality we used to have.
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They’ve added new features? When? Where?
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Samsung TV’s, for example. That’s a non-core feature that is not beneficial to the majority of existing customers.
Frankly, UK expansion was also non-core feature that hurt all existing USA customers.
IMO, those aren’t features.
When they released the new app last year with the smart lighting app, that was a new feature.
In the past, what?, 6-8 months since then, we got lock notifications.
Woohoo.
I’ve said it before. ST’s business model is unsustainable. It’s basically, "Give me $99 and I’ll maintain a cloud infrastructure to run your stuff forever. "
I bought a ReplayTV back when TiVo wasn’t out yet. I paid like $400 extra for “lifetime” channel guide updates. The replay still actually works, but hasn’t gotten Chanel guide updates in a long time.
We complain about the issues, but I’m amazed it works at all. I suspect that late December and January will always be a bad time because they won’t have capacity to handle all the new users.
The infrastructure is expensive and every user they adds requires more bandwidth, CPU, memory and disk space … “Forever”. For $99.
Sure, they can get a cut of the switches and other stuff they sell, and they might sell an occasional refrigerator or TV that they might not have otherwise sold because of the ST support, but I doubt the value to Samsung is more than about $100.
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That’s not their business model. Neither was it Wink’s, heck Wink was giving away their FOR FREE… okay things may not have worked out for them in particular but that’s besides the point. The money for the hub is virtually irrelevant.
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Exactly. SmartThings (well, Samsung) has much more lucrative ways to earn revenue. Worldwide.
And I was being facetious when I referred to those distractions (international expansion, TV as hub, etc) as “features”. But those sorts of projects distraction from stability work.
What is their business model?
They won’t tell us. Which is suspicious, but what can ya do?
But there are likely correct answers in the Topic below…
And a dozen similar threads.
Fees will eventually be involved. You already can see some with the Samsung camera, I believe it charges for cloud storage??? Don’t quote on that one, though.
Well, they can add functionality and charge fees for that, but they will be hard-pressed to charge fees for what they have been providing for free since the box says there are no monthly fees.
I’m a software engineer and we just finished a two month long sprint doing exactly this. No new features, only stability. Not that uncommon. We didn’t even have any glaring issues with our software, just knew that if we didn’t, the technical debt would add up and get overwhelming quickly.
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True. They can’t charge for things they already give, but they can charge a fee for something everyone wants, say a USB internet module to keep the hub going if you lose internet, or a backup feature for all your settings. Plus, they have tons of information from all of us: which phone we use, where do we live, what time we get home, our light bulbs, light switches, rooms, etc. That information is valuable to lure other companies into working with them.
Anyways, we are deviating from the actual subject which is, everyone wants ST to be stable.
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