Fibaro Things - General

Has anyone looked over the Fibaro devices, and evaluated for use with SmartThings?

They have many features that I am eyeing, case in point (few of them):
http://www.fibaro.com/en/system-fibaro/smoke-sensor-en - Smoke sensor that can support battery or 24VDC.
http://www.fibaro.com/en/the-fibaro-system/rgbw-controller - RGBW Controller that can do tons of different things from acting as part to a parking sensor, to controlling RGBW Strip lights. It has analog sensors, only expanding it further…
http://www.fibaro.com/en/the-fibaro-system/motion-sensor - A powerful motion sensor…

I see that they build an “auto-update mechanism” into their devices, which seems specific to their Home Automation software, but when you look at the things you can do with their tools, it makes my mind race with ideas. The interfaces, the smooth integration, etc—all things I am hoping SmartThings is going to be doing soon. Check out those tablet interfaces! Just incredible looking. And if it looks cool, it just must work perfectly, right!!! :smile:

Honestly I find the fibaro interface to be cheap looking. Not my style personally.

The devices seem awesome though

Really? Compared to SmartThings? or compared to just an overall feel?

I am not quite sold on the SmartThings interface at this time, I hope a tablet version would overhaul the interface for touchscreen tablets (big picture). I get the mobile phone having a minimal look make sense.

This. I like flat looks. So the more minimal the better :smile:. Not a fan of all the bubbly and stylistic looks that apps used to have. So last year (Valley Girl Voice).

Ahh–the fun of user preferences… And a battle smart things is taking on constantly.

Haha… Sooooo true! Good luck STs team! lol

Comes down to two things people prioritize.

Function > Form

Form> Function

Yeah, but you can often find a balance too… Which I think is what SmartThings hasn’t done yet. But with new resources, gives new opportunities. So lets see what comes down the pipe over the next many months.

There has been a lot of debate over the SmartThings user interface but I’ve stayed out of it (until now). However, I agree with Darryl and prefer the “Form follows Function” and feel SmartThings is too tilted towards form. If you concentrate on getting it functional and easy to use, making it pretty can come later. You get into problems making it pretty first and then functional later.

There are many books written and classes about the success of “Form follows Function” versus the other way around.

Agreed. A balance needs to be met :smile:

And function and stability needs to mature a bit more in my mind, before you push the form too much.

The new “Dashboard” I think is an example of something that should have held off until further functionality, stability, etc was built in. I actually don’t like the dashboard at all. But it was a first attempt at a better gui/interface.

Me Hulk - The Strongest one there is! — ARGGGGGHHHHH!

ME NO NEED PRETTY, ME NEED IT TO WORK!

OK enough with the hulkism’s … I love nice looking applications, but that does me no good at all unless it works. For HA I would much rather have quick shortcuts that are configurable and sortable that work. They should be quick to find, and easy to setup.

ST with the tiles, works. I wish we could have more configuration of the tiles (pictures, icons, etc.) but I know that will come.

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Urman commented on this a while ago:

I have RGBW LED strips and would love to use this controller integrated with SmartThings!

Does anyone have the US version yet?

Beaitfully said :wink:

That was a while back… I’d be curious to see if they have made progress on the Z-Wave Color Command Class…

I’d love this, I need 4-5 of the controllers in my house. I have to run 60+ ft LED strips, and most options available to me are not pretty…

Nothing yet. It is very difficult to prioritize as it is the only device that uses it. Unfortunately it is still low on the list right now.

@urman Just a comment… it may be the only device using it, but if its a highly requested feature… wouldn’t some level of higher prioritization be put into it? That device has more features then just that one… many that would go a long way…

I really wish we could see requests prioritized… Even if its just the “community” requests and not the SmartThings company integration listing.

Just for us Hulk lovers eh @tslagle13

You can add to your list of nice Fibaro sensors (and available as US 908.4 MHz versions) the Fibaro Z-Wave FGK-101 Door/Window Sensor [http://www.fibaro.com/en/the-fibaro-system/door-window-sensor]
Its temperature capability (achieved with an optional DS18B20) is great : it is the smallest thermometer I have found, much smaller than the SmartThings equivalent. And AFAIK, without the calibration issues of the ST one.
Unfortunately, the current SmartThings built-in driver supports only the open/close capability, and although SmartThings may ultimately support it fully, it won’t be (at best) before early 2015.
Guess I will have to extend the driver myself…

Is this an accurate estimate you recieved from a STs staff member?