Yep, I guess I’m one of those who was confounded by stuff not working all of a sudden and ignored the notices.
I set it all up a couple years ago, it just ran. I guess I used groovy in some way, whatever it was. This isn’t a hobby for me, it’s just a means to an end. I just want my crap to work right for the long haul.
Count me in the bucket of being totally disappointed in how Samsung has handled… Well… Everything. It has always felt like an, “oh well” with any issue we have had. I’m not blaming all of the swell employees that have come on here to help stop the bleeding. My biggest disappointment has been what others have mentioned where they decided to take the route of not telling us specifically was not going to work. Progmatically it should have been a simple “if” statement and show a red flag. By Samsung not doing this, they are essentially giving the most loyal customers the middle finger. Also, I’m so tired of my routines/scenes and automations periodically disappearing. Every time I contacted support on this, they would say it’s a known issue and it would be fixed at some indeterminate time. I still have missing scenes! I eventually had create new ones and name them something else because the old ones still exist somewhere and they could still be triggered but they are not in the app. On any level, how is any of this acceptable!? Yes I came to smart things because I love to tinker and they did provide a great solution that fell in the realm of somewhat easier than Home Assistant and they came out at a time when there were very few doing what they did. I’m leaving Smartthings not only because I cannot support a company that does care about their core customers, but also, due to some serious health concerns, I don’t want to leave my wife with a ton of smart devices she can’t figure out. The app interface according to her now sucks. I am replacing all my home brew stuff with commerical off the shelf stuff and moving all my automations to Google home. I know that is not an ideal solution for everyone, but for me it checks all the right boxes and my wife understands how to use it. It was fun while it lasted but I can’t say that I enjoyed the ride.
These days there are lots of options, and different things will work for different people. And even moreso with Matter coming.
From what I’ve seen, hubitat and home assistant are popular alternatives for those with strong technical skills. But for those just looking for a plug and play system with a comparable userfriendly app, the popular choices are somewhat different, particularly if you’re willing to go to new devices.
Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomeKit have all significantly increased the complexity of rules they can support over the last two years, and some people who were already using one of those (or in the case of Apple, who already have iOS devices) are just going to those. Sure, at least the first two are a lot simpler than SmartThings, but they’re enough for many people.
I would argue that with the addition of Shortcuts, HomeKit has become almost comparable to SmartThings for power users, and if you add virtual devices through a third-party system, definitely close. But typically more stable (the recent architecture upgrade was a failure, but they rolled it back pretty quickly). And with a very big advantage for those of us who need our systems to keep working, the ability to defer updates until their impact is known. The main negative in HomeKit has always been the cost of individual devices, but matter is going to improve a lot of that.
If you can live with only selfbranded Zigbee plus matter, the new IKEA Dirigera system is worth a look. Aqara is another possible platform in this category.
Tuya isn’t for me, and their Matter hub looks like it will arrive a little later than the other superbudget brands, but they have a very wide range of device classes and they will also be an option for some people just for that reason.
If you are OK with only z wave and a few somewhat clunky integrations, the new z-box from Zooz has great engineering and a good visual rules engine.
I’m not specifically recommending any of those as alternatives, I’m just saying that there are quite a few choices these days, and different ones will work for different people.
There will also be people, myself included, who run multiple platforms. As I’ve mentioned before, several years ago I moved my own mission critical use cases off of smartthings because the platform just wasn’t reliable enough for my own needs. And because I really needed the ability to delay updates, since I only have one techie aide, who only comes once a week.
But I still use smartthings for some integrations and use cases, complex convenience situations, where it’s great when it works, and if it doesn’t, we have a Plan B already installed. I don’t know if that would make sense to most people, again, I am more dependent on my Home Automation than more able-bodied folks, but it is yet another option.
Choice is good. The trick is finding a setup that works for your own needs and preferences. And budget, of course. 