I have over 42 devices and 13 apps in my smarthings set-up. It took awhile to learn that not everything SHOULD be automated. and while I figured that out, i too had the same feeling the original poster has. BUT having had my hands on the first release of the app and the hub, I can tell you Smartthings is evolving (and quickly). 90% of the items that bugged me were usually solved in the next release without me being a part of some beta testing team - they generally know what sucks and what needs to be better.
That said, I recommend you spend more time with smartthings. Itās not what you want to hear but I can tell you there are a lot of people out there (like myself) who are not programmers or engineers who have fully automated homes thanks to smartthings. YES it took me a LONG time with trial and error and frustration to set it up and often times āDebuggingā why something was happening when I thought it shouldnt (because maybe I had two of the same Smartthing assigned or set up). Have a chat session with the support guys, they are very responsive via live chat and can help you set things up - once itās set up right, you can see what they did and learn the cleanest way to do it yourself.
ā¦the problem is that the product is already commercially accessible to the mainstream, but the ecosystem is not. Having this gap ā i.e. weāll take you money now, but the ecosystem isnāt quite ready for mainstream consumption ā is a risky position. And Iām sure there are some fanboys out there that will argue that if you only buy ST products, it works relatively well, but ST supports a number of standard protocols including Zigbee and Z-Wave. Even intermediate-level consumers will be looking for platforms that support these standards specifically, and select products based on this support. Thatās what I did, and I wouldnāt have considered ST if it was a mostly closed system like Loweās Iris. The comparison would be Bluetooth compatible, but only if you purchase Company N Bluetooth devices.
In short, I like the openness of the platform and the community is clearly behind it. But if I were the company, Iād invest in a number of things to close the gap between commercial availability and mainstream consumability, most notably better advanced documentation (the stuff on the support site is for users that buy a starter kit and want to turn a ST switch on and off), and a move toward a higher level of elegance in the GUIs.
Iām getting back into this for the moment. I use ST because it is open but the I do not want to automate ā I want to be in control and that is difficult. At the moment Iām trying to simple do a typescript program which can track the status of various devices as change for any reason including TCP lights and Hue devices but I canāt reliable get notifications on state changes. All I want is an app that can take Restful commands and also send me comments (perhaps using Websockets) when there are changes. Iāve implemented a version myself on my PC which send ans listens for Restful commands on the ST platform but itās difficult to assure that I can track ā many changes arenāt signaled and the last time I looked the documentation was in the challenge category.
Is there a standard app to just act as a bidirectional bridge? Is there new documentation?
While I donāt have any info on timing, I did just have a wonderful conversation with someone at support, who mentioned that they just got a new UX guy - provided to them by none other than Samsung corporate. One could reasonably assume that if itās coming from the top, they understand the importance of getting this done right. She also expressed her understanding of the fact that the UI as it is today is less-than-user-friendly. I, for one, am excited to see this change. Patience, friendsā¦
Oh trust me, I hate Samsungās UI just as much as the next guyā¦ But the aesthetic design has less to do with overall āuser experienceā than one would think. I canāt imagine the design of the ST interface changing (if itās anything, itās a beautiful app)ā¦ A good UX guy can take an awesome-looking app that is confusing and make it an awesome-looking app that works just as good as it looks.
Iām new - I donāt even have the hub yet. But my background is in HA and IT. I have to say, this thread has been enlightening. Iām looking for HA, with WAF - And I understand now that ST isnāt there yet. but I like the way itās goingā¦ Boolean logic will be a must to make this stuff useful in my house while maintaining my marital state.
At the end of the day, I see a lot of innovation (And promises) that will drive me to invest in ST. NOT because I like ST, particularly - There are a great number of things I donāt like (No internet, No ST?!?). But because Z-Wave/ZigBee/fill-in-the-blank - These full mesh, low power networks are going to be key.
The reason for my reply here is that I get concerned (Putting my IT hat on here) when people say that 802.11b/g/n/ac/ad is the next gen for the IoT. It canāt be - There is not enough room in the spectrum on any given channel today to support a great number of devices. Iāll give you an example:
In my neighborhood, there is a great deal of wireless - I can see 23 2.4gHz WLANs from my attic AP, and 4 of them have an RSSI like they are IN my house. Channels are all over the place, with the inevitable prick sitting on channel 4 or 8. This means that the noise floor for MY apās in MY house is extremely high. I have a large number of 802.11xyz devices, from Nest, to iThings, to cameras. With 2 APās, and an average of 13-15 WiFi devices connected, I am seriously stressing my WiFi environment - Some days, to the point of un-usability. I know the reasons for this, and how to mitigate them. But the average home user never will, and they will only have 1 AP. I can guarantee that a house full of 802.xyz light bulbs, switches, and things, will DESTROY a SoHo wireless routerās ability to serve the assigned spectrum with any reliability. 802.11ac has promise at 5gHz, but we will need radios in every room, and we all get to buy new hardwareā¦
This is an old article, but a fantastic explanation of what happens to a wireless radio when you add more and more clients to it (Can you imagine a house full of light bulbs and switches?!?): WiFi spectrum and utilization explained:
I want low power mesh networked devices for my house - And a great interface to run them. I hope ST becomes that interface!
You donāt need .11AC to utilize 5 GHz band. Dual-band .11N routers are fairly inexpensive and most laptops and tablets made in the last 3 years support 5 GHz. You can free up bandwidth in 2.4 GHz band by moving your most bandwidth-gungry clients to 5 GHz.
I just bought this system, mostly because of its active community and open platform. I can see itās not fully mature yet, and I am also running into the same frustrations as the OP, even here, many months later. Iām looking forward to a web interface that will allow rule building, for sure!
Iām also a software developer (itās curious, but not a complete surprise how many tech-heads are adopting this system, actually), and have found the multiple pages of devices/actions to be a PITA to navigate and configure. All I can think to do at this point is either write down everything I want to do, and then puzzle out doing it, checking them off as I go, OR write a SmartApp to do everything I want (I assume ā I havenāt completely investigated this as a solution yet).
Things such as: When Away, if one of (Door 1, 2, Window 1, 2, 3, ā¦) state enters OPEN or Motion state enters MOTION DETECTED, send push notification+activate siren 1 and siren 2(sound 2, volume 3)+photo burst on camera 1+photo burst on camera 2.
As far as I can tell, I have to use SmartApps to do this, come to think of it. I just donāt know if I can do it all at once (as one rule) ā I hope so. But this does mean I have to learn Groovy, which isnāt something I was anticipating when I bought the system. I didnāt realize the rules engine was so lacking, to be honest.
If you know Java you are goodā¦
If you know JavaScript, you are good except that you are going to put ; at the end of statements.
In nut shell, you will be fine.
Well, Iāve had my hub and a number of devices for about 3 months (about $1,200 worth). Iām not a programmer, but have always been tech savvy and able to solve many I.T. types of problems on my own (for myself and others). I am struggling with the interface like everyone else. Trying to see what rules I have working and what they all do is no simple task. This thread started almost a year ago. Any progress? My wife has already given up on the system except some simple things I gave her (like mailbox notifications). WAF is at almost zero in my house. It doesnāt seem that it should be so hard to have a more robust and organized list of automation rules to choose from in the Iphone app, and an easy way to view which you are using and which are being triggered.
Also, you need to be a programmer to use this for more than just a few simple automation commands. ST Support, please help the average guy who has invested in this. Is there a new āeasy to use rule builderā being built into the ST IOS app soon? And what about something to better organize and find automation rules. I should be able to find the āappsā I need on my iphone without having to copy and paste programming language from my laptop for simple automations. I keep stumbling across solutions to my problems in the community board, but it shouldnāt be so hard.
Sorry if this post sounds negative and I donāt have the solutions to offer. I do love the potential here and I am able to use some of the automation, but we need some better organization and simplification.
Short answer: the UI/UX sucks. They need a rules engine, a scheduler, and an easy way to view both. (Right now I literally have spreadsheets taped to the door to track schedules.)
And then they need an app store so smartapps can be found and creators compensated.
Meanwhile, what they have is a decent multiplatform protocol, an IFTTT channel, a commitment to openness, an excellent vision, outstanding customer support staff, and Samsung backing. Those are not small things.
But itās still a first generation effort. The second generation has been announced, and hopefully will fix a bunch of the issues you noted.
My own personal guess (purely a guess) is the impending arrival of Appleās HomeKit with Insteon and some other partners will mean that by Summer 2016 anyone who wants to be a contender in this space will need a solid plug and play offering.
I do expect Samsung/Smart Things to be one of those contenders. But theyāre not there yet.
