Get your act together. Seriously, this is nuts.
Christmas Eve AM, and I’m woken up by the security system, because the routine that turned it off didn’t run. It didn’t disarm the house at the device, and my roommate triggered everything going to the garage.
Thank you for seriously ruining my Christmas Eve. I really appreciate it.
When I write on SmartThings, I’m using a specific phrase: not ready for prime time.
Because you cannot get your Cloud/Device routine together.
PS I like SmartThings, I really do. I like the people. I like the community.
But when you get back from holiday, you all need to sit down and think about what you need to do to ensure critical events, like arm and disarm, connect, 100%.
In the meantime, my nerves have calmed down from the unexpected test this AM, so Merry Christmas. Get some rest.
I feel your pain, but at this point I don’t think anyone can rely on ST to be an alarm system. It’s just not there yet. SMH was way too premature.
yet, that is exactly what it is sold for.
And they have doubled down on the idea, asking for 19.95 a month for professional monitoring of such.
I use it as an alarm system in two houses but only enable the siren in the house that is currently empty. In this case I still get alerts if intrusion etc, but dont set off a siren and piss of the family if there is an occasional… oops.
Exactly where I am at. And you see several major contributing devs in the same boat.
Clearly, the idea, the community, the ecosystem is as good as it gets (Theory). The execution and the operational discipline demonstrated by ST at this point, however, are abysmal (Practice).
I hadn’t heard about the 19.95. I thought it was going to be 4.95?
What’s the 19.95 for?
S
4.95 is for their DVR service.
19.95 is the 3rd party monitoring via Scout
Oh, god, no. It took me five minutes to get the system disarmed this morning, and I would have had the police at the door.
I won’t install an exterior alarm for same reason: this is the second time it’s been tripped because the communication from cloud to device failed. At least today, only the people in the house had the stuff scared out of us.
This exact reason is why i haven’t invested in a siren yet. Maybe one day… Definitely not until the implement a delay option.
I can understand. But we live in a subdivision that has no street lights (because someone’s sleep might be disturbed), and the lot to one side has been allowed to turn into wild forest. It also a history last year of break-ins. Though it’s a safe neighborhood…I’d rather two false alarms than it not go off if there’s an actual break in.
Right now, we have two cree bulbs in front and back, and they do pretty good, but stuff happens.
When it does, they get hit with a couple of very, very loud sirens that don’t stop even if you unplug them, and every light inside and out goes on. I suspect that will probably be the end of that.
I know I wanted to run out of the house this morning. And I live there.
I think you should invest in a real alarm system and be done with it at this point. We know ST is not ready and the last thing you want is another break in.
Not worth the alarm system. A spat of break ins last year doesn’t undercut the fact that this is a safe neighborhood. Biggest problem is lack of street lights.
SmartThings actually fills a niche need: you want a security system, but you don’t own such valuable stuff that you’re a major target, and you don’t live in a place where you arm yourself when you go to bed. Which is to say, most ST hub owners.
If anything, the fact that the system didn’t disarm demonstrated the system works: my goodness, it was both bright and very loud. And very, very fast, so the alarm triggering strikes me as local event handling, which is good.
I have faith. I’ve not seen anything from ST other than a fairly strong commitment to improve.
Can’t say the same thing about Google’s OnHub.
Love Smartthings but it’s good for non-critical activities - locking up and turning off lights at night, garage door opener, Christmas light display control (I put up ALOT of lights), remote lock the vacation rentals, let the house keeper in when she forget the keys, etc…
Open close detection of garage door (left open too long).
At this time I couldn’t, as much as I love the system, recommend it for a security system.
I received Smartthings as a Christmas Gift and wish I never did! I went out and bought a $200 Schlage Camolot smart lock (cause Smartthings claims to support it) but it was like taking your car to a full service station to find out they can only do oil changes. All I can do with Smartthings is Lock/Unlock…Lock/Unlock. Not too smart if you ask me. Ok, to be fair Smartthings claims to have a vibrant community of developers from which you can add Smartapps to meet your particular use case. HAHA, GOOD LUCK WITH THAT ONE! You can spend hours watching youtube videos, reading the documentation, going through countless posts, and even creating a Github account, but at the end of the day…you will be at the same point as when you woke up! It is quite obvious that Smartthings is a company run by engineers. My recommendation - If you are not an engineer wait another 3 to 5 years until they get this stuff sorted out. Then give it a try.
This actually sounds about right… but it’s probably one of the only valid points in your post. 
Seriously though, I had similar issues when picking a Schlage deadbolt for my new house, mostly because I had to make 100% sure that the device was fully supported by ST, or that someone had actually made some kind of smart app to enhance its functionality.
I (and I’m sure several others) have Schlage Camelot devices. Mine supports lock/unlock, alarm, automatic relocking, custom access codes, etc.
What model do you have, specifically?
The Schlage Chamolot lock I have has all the features you mentioned but I have to manually program them with the lock keypad. Smartthings does not support those features “right out of the box”. You have to search through developer posts to find someone who has written a Smartapp that supports all the features of the lock.
And that is a huge PLUS 
, for SmartThings’s Customers, not a NEGATIVE 
.
There is no clear path for the average layperson to follow to implement ANY of these PLUS features that you speak of…it is a HUGE frustration for the rest of the world.
I agree… but this is something that SmartThings can fix rather easily. They could provide a method to access Community developed Device Types as easily as the “official” ones.
It’s not a technical problem; SmartThings has many technical problems… it’s a shame they don’t leverage the work of the Community more and the lock type is an excellent example; but they are working on it.
Disclosure: I’m a co-developer / promoter of SmartTiles, which has been well-received by many SmartThings customers. We have had somewhat “mixed” reception from the company itself though … but we’re optimistic that it is improving … along with the product, I guess.