Well put Patrick…
I do think there are opptys. to support the DIY market as a boutique HA service provider but a good biz model needs to be considered as it would take volume to compete against many in the the CE market (with overhead) who still bank on larger project opptys.
I crrently do something similar with home theaters :). I am just going to change the service in my contracts and put support for the hardware on STs and support for my software on me 
You are correct though. I used to support it all and that didn’t work.
My current business incorporates this model . I charge $150 a year for support. If you don’t pay for the support contract its $100 a visit.
I already have a contractor in my pocket 
. It’s really cool my current business lends itself pretty well to incorporating smarthtings into current home theater jobs and providing new HA installs as a “side” project.
like @tslagle said i am in his same business in my country, I do support for other several products and is like add a new one.
you are write @pstuart this are big competition, but the good think in my country this big ones always charge a lot of $$$$$, and they only sales to rich people, but smarthings is affordable, good quality and hit the target of people that we call B class, the big ones are targeting the AAA clase only. I know a project that lutron charge for 4 lights in a room $4000 + services.
I also as @tslagle13 said i paid full price for smartthing on the site.
@Tyler thanks for the link! I didn’t see that article. I was thinking it would be cool to have a brick-and-mortar store that looks like the interior of a home and showcases smartthings and how it works with their compatible devices. When I tell people about smartthings and show them the app, they think it’s pretty cool… but when they see it in action at my house, they are blown away.
I like everyone’s ideas, too… I didn’t realize this would be such a hot topic! 
This exactly. I have 30-40 customers that have asked for this already and have stayed out of it for now, but I think its time to move into the market. Vivint and Control4 started somewhere right? Well, so will I.
If you only have a 10 inch frying pan you can only cook fish that are 10 inches long. Expand your frying pan and your options are limitless. Expand your dream and you will get what you want out of life.
Well, I am a IT guy that works in the healthcare industry. I am interested in doing this to assist a good friend who is building a business to do upgrades to the home. Electrical, Theater, HA (SMILE).
I think it would also be wise if this is indeed the direction that everyone wants to do, might as well build on our community and work out a way to engage each other’s services to build apps and device handlers as necessary.
What do you guys think?
Anyone in Phoenix interested in partnering up to offer programming/installation to customer?
im in the dallas area and i would love to partner with someone too
Roanoke Virginia here and also interested…
I am interested in a business model like this as well (as described by Patrick and TSlagle). It’s been a while since this thread was more active. I’m just wondering if any of you went on to implement this? If so, how’s it going? I’m in southern California and am contemplating starting up a service in the region. Any experiences or pros/cons you want to share, I’m happy to hear it all. Thanks!
Thanks, I’ll check it out! Any other info or discussion is still welcome, of course. 
@slagle - is the HA part of your home theater business going well? Do you see consistent interest and demand? Growth?
(edited to change tag for Tim. I’m not sure if you do this as a business anymore but thought I’d still ask the questions)
tslagle13 now works for SmartThings, and is the lead developer advocate there. Now known as slagle.
Anyone here now if smartthings would be able to set us up as a dealer in a country where the product is not available locally. We are based in the middle east and do a lot of control 4 installations and smartthings would be a great add on. Just simply giving us a channel to buy the hub and things from the US would be a great start…
I’m not “from SmartThings”, but I can still say with 100% confidence, that they won’t “set you up”.
There are strict regulations SmartThings has to follow to sell in any country (well, some more strict than others); not to mention just basic logistics. And I’m not sure the details of their dealer partner program, but I’m pretty certain they need to focus on official nations way ahead of others.
There are users (and integrators / dealers) already in many countries though. I guess they just import ad hoc.