Hey guys, anyone here had the V1 EU ST hub? How is it different from the Samsung-branded V2 UK hub?
Today I found some guy in my country selling his Kickstarter ST hub unit with EU frequencies. That lucky bastard, one of the few. Interesting, huh, but a V2 EU hub is really cheap now on Amazon UK with international delivery. Maybe just get the newer unit?
But let’s read some Amazon reviews about the v1 and v2, and… oh, someone there says “Don’t buy the newer version in case you’re tempted to buy the 2nd version. DON’T because this version works with Amazon Echo, multitude of Z-wave devices, Arlo and so forth”. Huh, what??
So, can anyone explain it? Battery backup aside, what’s new in V2 UK units?
There never were V1 versions made on the EU frequency for mass distribution, just a few from kickstarter. In which case they are really really old (three years or more) and almost certainly have z wave instead of Z wave plus, which to my mind would be reason enough to buy the newer one.
There are some other differences, such as not having any local operation at all (there’s not much on the V2 hub, but there is some)
Given that you’re even considering this, if you’re the sort of person who buys very inexpensive equipment, you should also know that most of the least expensive zigbee options for the U.K. Hub, including the £8 Xiaomi sensors, require some zigbee updates which are only available on the newer hub.
If someone has a V1 hub and they are happy with it, then I generally advise them to just keep it. But if you are looking to buy something today, I would definitely buy the new generation.
Samsung recently released a router with a hub built in. Not sure if it will be EU ready but that is probably what is driving the V2 hub price down some.
Yeah, V1 unit must be old, but SmartThings got CE certification and sent out EU Kickstarter units almost a year after US sales started, which probably means these are already ZW+. Or so I thought…
Deeply regret having missed the Kickstarter campaign to get my own EU SmartThings hub in 2012. When EU backers got their rewards I even went on and asked if the company got some leftover EU units, but unfortunately they didn’t.
Sometime later I bought another z-wave hub, some more years passed… Now I have Zipabox expandable DIN-mounted Z-Wave hub with extra Zigbee, RF433 and battery modules. Today with ST it’s more of “what if” and having a gestalt closure
Yes, except the only automations which are stored locally are some of the ones from the official “smartlighting” feature and parts of the official “smart home monitor” feature. So not a lot. But it does make a difference to some people.
If the person has a photograph of the underside of the hub, you can probably see which is Zwave logo it has. The V1 hubs were all Classic Z wave until late 2015, so if it’s a kickstarter version, it’s almost certainly the older generation.
IMHO I really don’t see much of a reason to buy an old V1 hub unless the seller is practically giving it away vs. the price of a new v2 hub, or you’re unable to obtain a new v2 hub through regular retail channels.
the V2 hubs can do over the air firmware updates of some zigbee devices, including the SmartThings branded devices. The V1 hubs cannot.
And the V2 hubs have a new mirroring process Introduced a few months ago which keeps an image of the previous firmware in the hub itself which allows for possible recovery if there is a problem during a future firmware update. This is not available on the V1 hubs. It’s one of those things that you hope you never have to use, but if you do have a problem, it’s a good thing to have.
Whatever the reason, V2 ST hub on Amazon UK is practically a steal now: Dispatch outside of UK deducts VAT automagically, International delivery is only 7-10 pounds, too… SmartThings is cheaper than VeraPlus!
