Clarity on Integrations to Smartthings

Devices & Integrations
5

As @Cobra mentioned, it just varies device by device. There are four types of integrations that are possible:

One) direct connection to the smartthings hub. This is limited to certified Z wave devices and zigbee devices that use the zigbee home automation profile (ZHA 1.2)

  1. official LAN integration. This is only available for a few devices, such as the Phillips hue bridge, google home, and Amazon echo. It may require an additional device or it may not, it just depends on the specific model.

  2. cloud to cloud connection. These devices need to have their own Internet connection, which is often through their own bridge device. For example, the official integration with Lutron Caseta devices requires that you have the Lutron SmartBridge.

  3. integrations which would normally be cloud to cloud or LAN, but which you can set up using a local server such as a raspberry pi as a “man in the middle.” This requires some technical skill, so most SmartThings customers won’t do it, but some do.

Sometimes you will have a choice between methods for a specific device. For example, the only officially supported method for using Phillips hue bulbs is option two, using the Phillips hue bridge. But some community members do connect a Phillips hue bulb directly to the smartthings hub using method one. (There are some potential downsides to that, which is why it is not officially supported.)

in other cases, using option 4, a local server, can add functionality that you don’t get from one of the official integrations. For example, there is a community created server integration for Lutron Caseta which let you use a wider range of devices. But does require technical skill to set up.

Your specific questions

The Fibaro Z wave devices fall under option one, and can be directly connected to the smart things hub. You don’t need the Fibaro hub to use those.

The Energie Devices fall under option three, a cloud to cloud integration, so you will need their gateway to get to their devices.

As far as a table of everything, The problem is the openness of the SmartThings platform means that there are literally thousands of devices that can be made to work with it. There’s no one definitive list.