Giving up on SmartThings

General Discussion
41

You’ve been a member since May 2014 and made 5 posts… all negative.

What took you so long to “give up”? (NB: This is a real question, even though it sounds facetious…).

Actually, with so few posts, relatively speaking it appears you didn’t spend that much effort asking questions to resolve or isolate problems.

Again, I’m not meaning to be inflammatory, I’m just trying to get a glimpse into the 90% of Customers who never use the Forum at all. I’m insanely curious how many of them give up and how soon…

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42

I think that’s easily understood. Most expect a product to work and then some. The masses don’t consider having to frequent forums the mark of a good product. Really, most people just don’t have the time/patience for this.

Not bashing ST. I ordered V2 after saying I wouldn’t, but I don’t represent the average consumer. As I have said previously, when this hits Best Buy people are just going to return it without ever coming here.

43

SmartThings has sold over 100,000 Hubs. Amazon rating on V1 is 3.8, on V2 is 3.1.

Do you think a significant proportion of Hubs are either:

  • returned / resold
  • unplugged
  • used minimally?
44

I’m a professional software developer; I understand the nature of tech is to sometimes be finicky and I’m willing to give people/companies a chance to sort out the problems.

If a company says they support X, then I expect X to work the vast majority of the time. I expect the occasional wrinkle from upgrades and I completely expect it if the support is alpha/beta, etc. SmartThings has been advertising support for Hue and WeMo devices since before I bought my hub. As you pointed out, that’s close to 18 months… and STILL I have more time where there is some sort of a problem with than when everything is working properly.

I’ve been wiling to work around the glitches by using the native apps and, at this point, I’ve become so used to it that I’ve finally had enough of SmartThings advertising support for something when they clearly don’t.

No one can accuse me of not giving them a fair shot.

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45

To some extent I can understand the frustration with SmartThings. So my question to those who are giving up is: Are you giving up on Home Control/Automation? Or are you moving to something “better”?
Just really want to know. I think they all have some level of frustration, just what are you willing to deal with. For me, I am coming from Vera Lite to SmartThings V2. So far I like SmartThings better. I hope the experience gets better with time. I would really like to be locked into an ecosystem and not have to move again.

46

I think the consumer who has (over the last year) sought out Smartthings online is different from the one who’ll snag it at Best Buy because an associate says it’s great.

47

I’ve been following SmartThings since I heard about this through on-line means last year. I’ve been waiting for ages for a UK release was so happy when I got an email from Curry’s stating that they would be selling it.

I’ve researched it and others and based on the promise that this would be the same as the US model I took the plunge. £200 is not a small amount of money to my and my family, and to have a product that is not sold as advertised with the cost incurred so far I am disappointed.

That being said however, I have faith in Smartthings and its potential.and I will wait in high anticipation of the faults currently being rectified.

However - We really should have a UK status page that represents the faults currently on the system!

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48

Interesting theory…

I have trouble generalizing this over the 100,000 “early adopters” so far, only a fraction of which use the Forum.

49

I don’t see any contradiction. People who research things online, read CNET, and buy micro relays off of Amazon are different than people who are just wandering through Best Buy and have their attention caught by a display.

Participation in a forum is yet a different behavior. It overlaps more with the first group, but it’s still only a subset.

So I see multiple different groups. The casual shopper in a brick-and-mortar retail store, the gadget buyer who does some online research, and the ones The participate in forums.

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50

That begs the question: What will the brick-and-mortar retail experience be like?

I went to the Target Open House flagship smart home store in San Francisco last night and wasn’t blown away, though it was a special event, not the typical experience they supposedly provide with specially trained sales associates. (http://www.yelp.com/biz/target-open-house-san-francisco?ytprail=1)

There were a lot of hands-on opportunities, but without a guide, it’s difficult to grasp the depth of each product, let alone how to establish the “magic” automations and interactions that are dynamically depicted throughout the Store.

Best Buy didn’t seem to do a good job of selling PEQ, so I wonder if Samsung will be insisting on special associates for the product area. Best Buy also has some amount of hands-on displays (not as much as Target Open House, of course), but, really, special demo software and/or people are required to walk the Customer through the experience. If the demo mobile App crashes … well, that’s a lost sale.

So, @pd_, will retail associates “say it’s great” just to earn a sale, or will they actually have enough product experience to give that opinion from an informed perspective? Will Best Buy take advantage of their Geek Squad to help improve the Customer unboxing, basic installation experience?

Would a direct-to-home delivery service like Enjoy (launched recently – offers same-as-retail pricing but includes 1 free hour of in-home guidance) be the optimal channel?

In summary: If SmartThings can make optimal use of the brick-and-mortar or similar “personal” sales channels, will that hold a Customer from returning within a 30-day window? Will it get them addicted enough and/or over the learning curve enough to keep them from “giving up”?

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51

Best Buy’s new marketing strategy is based on the “store within a store” concept which did work quite well for them with Magnolia. Their commitment to that strategy is the reason why Apple agreed to go with them as their first non-Apple retailer of the watch. You’re going to see more and more of these brand sections in Best Buy over the next six months.

I don’t know if this is the program that Smartthings is participating in or not. If it is, there will be a SmartThings branded area of the store with associates who do have training in selling that particular line. We’ll see.

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52

I’ve wondered if ST would be in the Samsung (store in a store) or the connected home section.

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53

I have a range of IOT / HA kit that I have acquired over a few years, 433MHz HomeEasy, Smappee, Hue, Wink (until they killed it with an update), GE link, Netatmo Weatherstation, Netatmo Thermostat, Solaredge inverter and WeMo. One thing I have struggled with is the WAF, namely having to use several different phone apps, practically one for each task, whenever manual control is required.

What I was really looking for is one place that can control and monitor everything. I recognise that that will never be possible out of the box, but Smartthings looked like it was going to be capable of that through either direct support, OR writing/adapting custom device types and smartapps, OR through linking to other existing devices through the IFTTT channel.

I’m no programmer, but I have a great willingness to learn and experiment, so I was delighted when I found SmartThings was launching in the UK. Here was a chance for me to not only put control and automation for lots of my existing devices into one place and boost the WAF, but also start writing the apps to link up to some other new and exciting possibilities. My ultimate HA wish is to be able to automate the control of devices depending on the amount of surplus power solar power being generated by my solar system, as reported by Smappee. That is where the system actually pays for itself.

The No1 problem for me is, SmartThings launched in the UK before the product (or more specifically the server side) is actually ready and working. So all those things I wanted to try and get working, simply cannot be made to work. 1) I cannot get a rudimentary system up and running using IFTTT to manage those devices not supported by device types and smartapps, 2) I cannot experiment with my own programming and adapting others’ coding, because just about every connected device in the cloud requires Oauth which is also broken. This sort of issue on product launch is unforgiveable and risks severely damaging the brand…It makes it look as though SmartThings is an under-resourced, under-funded startup, not part of a massive global enterprise.

Samsung shop allows me one month to evaluate a product and decide if it is satisfactory or suitable. The countdown clock on that month starts when I received the product. It does not start on the day that launch issues such as IFTTT and Oauth are fixed. I am simply not prepared to give up my rights to return the product whilst waiting for an unknown number of days / weeks / months for these basic issues to be fixed. This is not a small investment - hubs are sold in the UK for $150 (only $99 in the US), and with the starter kit (incidentally I was given faulty sensor in my starter kit too) this comes to $300.

If this was my company, in the absence of a platform outage affecting the global platform I would have 90% of my developer team working on fixing the Oauth/IFTTT issue to ensure it does not keep dragging on (and realistically, how hard can it be guys if you really do focus on fixing this - working both sides of the atlantic too). I would also offer some compensation to customers who have been affected by this issue (identified either through forum posts or support requests). I would also arrange for those who bought the hub to have their evaluation / right-to-return period extended so that the 28 day countdown does not start until IFTTT and Oauth are confirmed to be fully working for UK customers. I would also abandon / postpone the insiders trial being sent out to some people as it is utterly pointless and surely damaging to ask people to trial a product that does not yet work.

I think the Community on SmartThings is First Class. However the support, functioning of the product, corporate decision making around priorities and launch decisions, fault transparency, and the mobile app all fall a long way short of that standard.

I may well be back to SmartThings in the future. But not before I see the evidence (by reading these forums) that these issues are fixed and the company is becoming more focused outwards on the customer and less inwards on itself. Who knows whether by that time I will have found an alternative product that satisfies my needs.

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54

Thanks for the reminder that this Topic is under the “UK & Ireland Specific” Category! Pardon my off-Category posts! :neutral_face:

As for “realistically” … well, I’ll leave the research to you, but realistically there are at least a dozen issues with SmartThings that, from an informed Community member’s perspective, should be a high priority for focused resolution effort, and many of these have been more than an annoyance, for over a year.

From a Kickstarter backer and US Customer perspective, frankly, I’m rather upset that Samsung diverted resources to global launch before resolving the domestic issues. Yet if that were a constraining prerequisite, the UK launch might “never” have happened. Even Ben stated that it was frustrating to have this distraction while Hub V2 was still under development. :confounded:

55

… and I’m certainly not as informed as you regarding the other issues that should be high priority. Thanks for that.

It does highlight the need for a very clear roadmap to be published so that customers know what issues are going to be addressed, and when (and just as important, which things are NOT going to be resourced). Customer expectations can be managed much more effectively this way rather than simply we’re trying very hard, here have a funny gif instead."

I have had management responsibility for IT development projects in the past and I know how important it is to be transparent with your customers, to deliver what you promise, and to say no when you don’t have the resources available. I learned the hard way too.

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56

I very much agree … yet have recently become ambivalent.

An official SmartThings published roadmap, or even a basic “open issues list”, ain’t gonna happen. Very few large companies do this.

  • It gives the competition an advantage in several ways (they can capitalize on features or bugs that SmartThings / Customers have ranked as high importance, they can choose to mimic or counter the strategy, steal the thunder before releases, etc.).

  • It gives potential Customers reasons to defer purchase until the planned resolution dates.

  • It ties the Company to the roadmap or risk completely discrediting the entire roadmap and that affects the reputation of the Company negatively more so than the negligible positive impact of successes.

  • It sets up the Company for valid and endless impatient complaints when bugs and features are not resolved as scheduled and/or as described (Exhibit A: The extremely long and annoying Topic thread for the Hub V2 release which was delayed from April, to July, to September, and now is missing features that were explicitly described from time to time during that period).

  • It provides a succinct historical record of all the product issues and all the delays and failures in their resolution.

No-win scenario. Except the “nebulous” value of “transparency”. Yes – many of us value transparency more than enough to exceed all the negative bullets above. But I doubt that is the case on average across the broader market and industry.

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57

I too have to join the “giving up club” - I have had it installed a week (starter kit + 4 power outlets) and its performance has been at best …woeful. When it works (in-frequently) it’s brilliant - but EVERY day there has been an issue and tonight has been the last straw.

Now to set the scene…I’ve had some form of home automation for years and I truly wanted to believe ST had cracked it. I’m a programmer by trade of 20 years and adept at technical/computer based things.

The first day or two it all worked well. Then, because the SmartTiles integration doesn’t work due to the OAuth issue (& inviting people to your account has been suspended) my wife wasn’t able to switch the lights on…no problem…I’ll do it from the office…didn’t work; all I got was the green “turning on” symbol for the socket and then back to “off” after a minute or two. Hey-ho…it’s my mobile connection (4G on EE) to blame maybe?

Next day - same thing, un-responsive sockets/general slugishness…this time I was at home on the house wifi…green “turningon” and nothing…fired up live logging…nothing showing at all for any command I executed. So we’ve ruled out handset connectivity…maybe my house isn’t talking to the internet very well? A few 25mb/s SpeedTest.net results later seems to show I have some sort of connection.

Today I worked from home and had a chance to play with the system…worked exactly as expected until about late afternoon, then suddenly went unresponsive again, rebooted a few times. two of which failed to go green light, finally got connected again…this time the ST motion sensor seemed to be locked reporting “motion”. Remove device from ST, battery out and now can’t get to pair with hub.

My thoughts are that this product…for all the lovely packaging, glossy advertising etc just isn’t fit for purpose outside of lab environments. It’s entirely failed the wife test and I’ve run out of patience with it already because it simply doesn’t work…I had to go round all the sockets this evening pressing the little button on the side! I’m going to mothball the entire lot, reinstall the HomeEasy kit I had before and try again with it again in six months time, hopefully some firmware/back-end updates will sort something out.

Would I recommend it: absolutely not, it’s pitching into a “push button” consumer market but can’t deliver that experience, it’s for techie hobbyist with more money than sense :wink: I’ll keep an eye on announcements and if anything looks like a step forward I’ll jump back in - but until then I’ve got £400 worth of paperweights.

The bit that really frustrates me is the logging that could show me where exactly it’s stopped working - I think that the back-end gets overwhelmed with “rush-hour” traffic and this spike cause a problem.

Disappointed of Surrey :frowning:

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58

I’m busy trying to sell my few bits of LightWaveRF gear and was seriously looking into getting SmartThings.

I have 2 WeMo switched which are fine, and reading SmartThings they are supported so was happy with this.

Just read this thread though and I’m now worried and going to hold off on the starter kit I was going to buy from Currys.

There seems to be lots still not working, and above comment about “wife test” although in some ways in jest, is spot on, it just has to work. No good having to do numerous reboots just to make a simple light/lamp come on, or the wife phoning and saying this/that not working and me remotely trying to switch a simple light on, when she’ll just say, get rid, I’m happy to switch a normal switch on myself!!

I’m not a genius but do like messing about with cobblers/tech/HA etc, so am used to troubles and fixes but no good if it doesn’t work…

I’m also disappointed that it won’t work with some EasyBulb WiFi lights I have (also branded as Limitless and MiLight). Unsure if technical reason, I’d love Hue but are very expensive (got 6 led EasyBulb for £100), so don’t really want to change.

I’m reading (some posting), and will watch but just seems ST isn’t ready yet…

59

Milight uses UDP for direct communication over the local network, which is not a protocol currently supported by SmartThings. There are some people who are trying to hack around and find a way to make it work, but not yet.

At present, Smartthings supports zwave and zigbee ZHA 1.2 devices. Also zigbee ZLL bulbs connected to a Hue bridge.

There’s a bluetooth antenna in the hub, but it is not turned on yet.

In the US, Smartthings supports many third-party integrations through cloud to cloud connections, but these generally require the OAuth protocol which is currently broken for the UK. They are working on getting it fixed, but no specific timeline yet.

Some people have added additional integrations by adding additional hardware devices including their own server pieces, but it does get pretty complicated, and it’s best to just investigate each of those topics individually.

So there are certainly community members looking at a possible Milight integration, but there isn’t one right now, and it isn’t going to be easy.

60

This is the biggest issue for me too. I have other systems I wanted to integrate (Nest, Netatmo) but they require OAuth, I also wanted to install a dashboard on a couple of tablets using Smart tiles (http://www.smarttiles.click/) however again this requires OAuth to be working.

I will be returning the kit to Currys and waiting until Samsung fix these issues.

Who decided to release the product whilst there were back end server issues?