IS the only way> they got to know and best way is to tally the problems and fix the worst 1st
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Iām in the same boat. A once stable setup now fails regularly. Routines fail to fire, sensors show an open status when theyāre not, lights refuse to turn on or off, etc. Iāve opened tickets but the issues mysteriously resolve themselves only to return again at a later date. Iāve pretty much given up on SmartThings and feel badly that I encouraged friends and family to buy the product. As things stop working, Iām removing them. I guess Iāll just wait until ST gets it together (or doesnāt) or a competitor releases a better product. Itās really a shame to see a product I loved and had very high hopes for become something that, for me at least, is no longer usable.
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I donāt want to āpile onā but I hope that SmartThings is reading all of this (since they just emailed out this thread in an email blast!)
I started to use my SmartThings - finally - that I had backed on KickStarter. I did so when I bought an Echo and saw the potential for the integration. My issues that I have been seeing:
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The hub randomly drops and reconnects to the Internet, and often will issue DHCP requests for an hour before accepting the one given to it. Iām a network engineer and have watched the traffic ā¦ my DHCP server is issuing a valid response to it but it seems to ignore the reply. I design and build hardware and write embedded protocols - including DHCP - and have 50+ devices on my network that work just fine.
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The ST motion sensors I got are useless. They false alarm all of the time. I have put my other ZWave motion sensors in the same places and they have no false alarms, sitting side by side.
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I have set-up apps to automate lights in the house, and currently they execute maybe 8 out of 10 times. I get up in the morning, and several days of the week no lights are on. I come home late ā¦ no lights on. Again ā¦ itās about 2 out of 10 times they fail.
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I agree with one of the other comments that common rules - like what I use with my Insteon ISY-99 - are not easily available. I get that I can code anything I want, but I think they are failing thinking that developers are going to rush in and provide all of the base functionality needed. They really need to enhance their basic apps and quickly. I need to be able to do more with (sunset - minutes) and (sunrise + minutes), etc. Also the modes and presence rules. I know I still need to play with one of the recommended app ā¦ but donāt have the time lately.
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Lastly, I believe that if they are not executing their rules āat the edgeā in the hub it is a fatal architectural flaw. Any Internet or Cloud issues means that my house stops working? #fail
I love the concept and when things are working, but the reliability and breadth of functionality is not quite there yet. They really need to divert some funds into more people working on the foundation ā¦ not next-generation.
My 2-cents.
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This comes from discourse, not us 
we read every post.
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Iām fairly certain they do but your best bet for support from them is emailing them support@smartthings.com
If this is a very original hub, that in itself may be your problem. Or it may just be faulty. Again email support
I only have 1 actual ST motion sensor, itās always been very reliable.
Failures are pretty common, but generally for a reason. Iād say some more research into whats involved here.
I think the entire ST ecosystem is over complicated. There have been some recent community developed apps that are kinda an almost all in one solution. . I think ST had the right idea with SmartLighting
This has been how it has been from the start. However, they have began to make some stuff local. There is lots of hope from the community this will progress.
Most of the community would agree.
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Thatās not what beta testing is for. I would hope @tslagle13 agrees. Beta test should never be confused with QA regression testing. It would be awfully low of ST to exploit their user community in this way.
Beta tester: A power user who tests new features and functionality and provides constructive feedback for improving the final product.
QA Tester: An employee of ST who gets paid to regression test existing functionality before beta testing begins to ensure the new features havenāt broken previously stable functionality. Ideally regression testing is automated to some degree.
That said I leave you with this:
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Iām fairly certain they do not read half or Iād rather assume any of this. If they are able to read every single thread/post that is going on throughout the forums then they have serious problems with prioritizing work and employees, which of course is already apparent right? These employees should probably be prioritizing more on helping out support if support is outrageously and severely lacking right which seriously, letās be real, itās a joke. What do I mean by helping out? If they are reading forums, contact the OP, contact people with support tickets to let them know you are still looking into it, anything to show the customers that they actually give a damn. The only one actually attempting to do anything to help is slagle so that guy seriously needs a raise and promotion because heās amazing.
Now letās all remember that I submitted a stupid email to support (at the email address you mentioned above) and got an almost instant response 6 hours later. Since then, guess what they responded with? Absolutely nothing! Zero! Nadda! No communication! And how long has it been since I last heard anything from them??? 1 WEEK AGO!!! I canāt lie about that, you can check the date I originally posted this issue. Since then, I have recieved absolutely positively zero communication, even after I sent a follow-up email wondering āwhatās going onā days ago. Honestly I think it is a strategy for them to quickly respond to you so you might think they are doing something about it but then it seems like they ignore you from there. Keep in mind I am definitely not the first one to complain about that either. What a joke! Here goes another week.
The slogan of SmartThings should beā¦āWhen it breaks, which it will often, your on your own!ā. Please put that on your main website so that anyone not reading this can get a heads up and stay clear.
Remember this post from tgauchat? Yea, Iām sorry but who said they read every post? Even that was posted about 4 days ago and still nothing, no response. Am I surprised? Absolutely not!
That video just made my night LOL! Thanks!
Of course it might only make sense for those that are familiar with Scrum.
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@sidjohn1 Be fair. I did open a ticket over a month ago. About a week later, I received a response that they would escalate it because the recipient couldnāt answer or help. A month later, still nothing.
Your answer is half rational, but half web-troll immature. Saying āYou canāt even be bothered toā¦ā when all the evidence suggests it wouldnāt work DONāT HELP. We know SmartThings isnāt responding in a timely manner, nor are they fixing bugs or answering questions in a timely manner. Nor are they responding to publication requests, as far as I can tell, at all. You should acknowledge that at the outset and then suggest, as you did, the forum for support.
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Yea well to me half of what he said really wasnāt relevant at all and was only there to make the matter worse. What I was essentially doing was a cry for help and I definitely admit that it wasnāt the best way of going about it (so being the fanboy everyone can see from his tone and message, it wasnāt surprising he went all defensive for SmartThings so I blame myself a bit there) but I was pretty frustrated to once have an amazing system and then, fast forward to now, a system that barely works except a few lights and such so maybe I donāt blame myself, whatever haha!
Starting off with āSmartThings isnāt for everyoneā is definitely the worst possible way he could have went about that conversation, as letās be real, most users or even people on this forum are not your every day āOhh looks shiny shopperā so you can really take that as an insult in some cases but whatever who cares. Secondly he goes on about what you mentioned in that I canāt be bothered to open a ticket yet he failed miserably at realizing the true underneath reason I never submitted a ticket and that was because the forum was and has been filled with issues of support being extremely bad or slow and coupled with the fact I was so frustrated to even want to deal anymore with the system that at that point I just kept ultimately pushing myself away (which I also admit was simply causing no benefit and still getting no where haha). Then he goes on about me trying to use my cellphone for a remote like it would act as a freaking logitech harmony universe remote clearly shows he didnāt even read the message I was getting across which was simply the fact that using the phone app is extremely bad for the user experience and the simplest tasks just to add actions to devices to automate your home which I was able to do on the old app versions are now somehow someway difficult.
Ultimately what he failed to do, and most likely due to my tone as that made him āfanboyā defensive, is that he never put himself in my shoes or the shoes of the many other people including yourself @NWTony so yea.
This thread is childish. I still use SmartThings and it works for me. Letās solve problems here and give and receive advice and help. Everything else is hot air accomplishing nothing.
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Iāll have to disagree - if it saves one potential customer from having to rip out their hair as result of $#!% that ST is putting out as production-level product and/or service, then it accomplishes something.
the fact that ST is working well/great/perfect for some is nice. When it works that well and reliably for all, then threads like this would be useless, but ST has a long way to go until such a time.
for those who donāt like reading anything negative, please move on to another topic
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Iām not sure how the last few posts save anyone from anything. Negative is fine if itās productive. I find nothing redeeming here.
Thenā¦
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I actually find this rather insulting and definitely childish from @bridaus so thanks a ton for sticking up for me (and many others) @jovanm, I appreciate that! If you actually take a look at his posts heās made you can clearly see what appears to be his ācockyā attitude in that he states his SmartThings always seems to work for him and you know what, good for him, he can go take his annoyance somewhere else as not everyone has a perfect freaking system like he does. This thread is not for talking about how great your system is working for you!
Letās discuss what this thread is about? A extremely valid complaint about a system that used to work great with a some-what working phone app. As time passed, the system started severely failing (odd case unlike many others) and the phone app got worse and worse and worse. Put in a support ticket, yea poor service there unlike I already knew. Since then, other users with the same issues have joined this thread to vent their frustration over 53 posts so far. Other users have also offered suggestions to help.
For your information @bridaus this thread was posted under āGeneral SmartThings Discussionā which is more than enough justification for itās creation. Itās not me attempting to clutter issues in the āDevices & Integrationsā or āProjects & Storiesā categories so by all means WTF is your role here? What are you trying to accomplish, besides pissing people off, and what appears to be absolute trolling on someone (actually many in this thread) who have experienced a ton of frustrations with SmartThings and are joining together to simply talk/discuss them? You come in here and read the last few posts and think you know WTF the whole thread is about?
Bottom line, if you find nothing redeeming here because your stupid system works so great for you then GTFO and stop wasting time posting or having anyone else read your comments as all your accomplishing is trolling and pissing people off.
I think is time for a new category āBang Head Here!āā¦
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Would you please let me know how you did that. If I knew how, I would have done it a while ago. Thank you in advance for your help.
I think the issue that some people might have with this thread is that instead of taking a proactive approach to solving the issues it seems users are simply posting rhetorical questions and open-ended complaints. That is well within your right to do, however it is not unreasonable for people to point out this fact and ask for a more productive conversation.
I understand that this can be an emotional and frustrating topic but I would ask as a fellow user to please refrain from the pointed attacks and angry/exclusionary comments. At this point it is, at least in my mind, bordering on violating the community guidelines. Beyond that, it does nothing to fix your problems or gain sympathy from people who arenāt experiencing your specific issues.
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@dfairbro1, look at the very bottom of the discussion, right above the āSuggested Topicsā area. Youāll see the Tracking button. Click on it and it will expand to give those options.
FWIW, Iām at 220 devices on hub v2. All working great. Have I had issues, yes; but all in all Iām quite pleased. In fact, I just got back from Lowes with the Automation Kit, so here comes another 5 devices!
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