There are definitely everyday users who woke up to find a lot of functionality shut down, particularly the users of Rboy apps. But also just users of custom STHM monitors, notify me when, even trendsetter. And those aren’t even necessarily power users: custom STHM monitors could be added through the app.
I have spoken with multiple people who saw the notification about the “smartthings platform“ and assumed that only programmers would be affected. One person even told me “I don’t use the smartthings platform, I just use the app.“
Some of that functionality can be replaced, but it can be a lot of work to do so, and some of it can’t without adding additional third-party solutions.
It’s not the first time this is happened: in fact, by my count, it’s at least the fifth. But the only one that was handled with real Grace was going from the original app to the 2015 app, when there was an official support page explaining how functionality would be replaced in the new version.
I’ve been saying since the acquisition first occurred in 2015 that I thought Samsung bought smartthings for the name and the buzz, not the platform itself, and I still think that’s true. They’ve certainly used the name a lot.
I don’t think there’s any indication that smartthings user data has been sold. I doubt if there’s anyone who cares which light switch gets turned on. And such sales would be illegal in Europe. They may be selling mobile phone data, but that’s a whole separate issue.
Anyway, I think Samsung got their money’s worth out of it, but Samsung employees have said multiple times in this forum that their typical hub user had 15 or fewer devices and never used any custom code. And at this point over 90% of their users don’t have a hub. They have a Samsung smart television or appliance or a galaxy phone.
A few of those people might be hurt by the loss of integrations like Life360, but not many.
So I do think there are people who are genuinely losing functionality and don’t know what to do about it and they feel a lot of frustration. But I also think that’s a small percentage of a small percentage and Samsung feels they can handle the reputational hit.
So I have said it before, I will probably say it again, but my feeling remains the same. Let’s try to help each other where we can, be understanding where we can’t, and try not to jump to conclusions about anyone else’s motivations. Or criticize the choices they make for themselves. It’s a long road ahead, and different things will work for different people.
There was some really great code written by this community, and it was a great benefit to many others, and I am grateful for that. I hope this forum continues to be a creative and interesting place to visit.
Just my own opinions, of course.
