I think I found a new setting. It's called HELLO HOME, NEVER WORK!

General Discussion
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SmartThings owner here, user, well, not so much. NOTHING works… So I think maybe by accident I have tripped some special Mode or setting where the SmartThings hub and, get this, even the support staff become unresponsive, mocking, and frustrating. I think it might be called HELLO HOME, NEVER WORK.

I just can’t figure out how to get out of this setting.

Nothing works, lights don’t turn on, or off. Motion isn’t detected. I get between 0% and perhaps on a good day after I hard restart the hub 25% notifications on my Android. Oh and the best part? Support only wants to support the Smartthings hub and not me the owner. “It can’t possibly be OUR hub, it must be you or your location.”- SmartThings support:
“No notifications? No way!”- SmartThings support.
"Zigbee radio not working even with our own devices? “No way, let me provide you with some blog posts our president wrote that show antenna direction.” - Smartthings
support.
I am so over this not working, certainly not safe nor protecting my family and home, and not supported P.O.S. I can’t even convince them to give me a replacement or refund.

Here is a rundown of the things I have found so far in the HELLO HOME, NEVER WORK! setting:

Zigbee:
Intermittent or no connectivity at all including but not limited to Presence sensor, GE Bulbs (not officially supported).

Notifications:
Sporadic, if ever notifications of events AKA security of my home and family. They show up in the event feed but never manage to make it to my notifications on Android.

Device control:
Absolutely no control over devices AKA lighting including Zigbee and Z-Wave devices. Have to manually unplug and replug the hub to get a light to turn on or off, Zigbee or Z-wave doesn’t matter.

Support for Product:
Multiple emails, calls, and live chats since the day I received to SmartThings in regards to the above mentioned issues including asking for a replacement hub to be sent or a refund on their broken product. NOPE.
Support supported the product and not my issues stating that they have never encountered issues with the Zigbee Radio in any of their hubs therefore mine couldn’t possibly be broken. Must be my personality. Sent blog posts instead of a “magic bullet” that would have been a replacement unit.
No Android notifications. Support statement is will everything looks fine in your activity feed, well damn that must mean its swell. Support suggestion? Email us when it happens again so we can check the logs. IT HAPPENS EVERY SINGLE TIME I OPEN THE DANG DOOR OR MOTION IS DETECTED. I don’t have all day to send up to 3-45 emails a day when an event isn’t notified.

Anyone else found this secret setting in their SmartThings hub or App? If you could let me know how to get out of this mode or deactivate the HELLO HOME, NEVER WORK! setting I would really appreciate it.

I apologize if there are any spelling or grammatical errors but I am sitting here in the darkness with no idea if my doors are open or closed.

Sincerely,

Chris “The idiot who purchased this hub” B.

P.S. I was requested within a few minutes to edit this post for offensive language so I apologize to the community if my language upset anyone. Those are the words I would have chosen to use if I had walked in on thief or worse in my house without getting notified.

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Tyler from SmartThings support here. I can’t tie your community username to your user account, but if you email support and ask for Tyler, I’ll ensure you get either a refund or replacement.

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Above is my boss Tyler. Yes, there are two of us.

I offered to replace your hub on 12/23. The offer still stands. Please follow up on that ticket and I’ll take it from there.

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Are we going to need a code of conduct for language on this site? I mean I get that it is asterixed but the words you are putting in my mind are off putting.

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Ben, I apologize if you were offended with my choice in profanity. It was merely an emotional outpouring out of my mouth without thought of sensibilities towards those who might hear it, similar to what I might have muttered had I walked in on a thief, or perhaps my house in the midst of being plundered due to my SmartThings hub not working correctly.

Sincerely,
CB

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Agreed. Thanks Ben!!

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“I offered to replace your hub on 12/23.”

Lol. So you say they won’t replace your hub… But they offered to do so a month ago? All your base are etc etc etc.

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Don’t fret. You can buy v2 in a few months.

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Well Chris you aren’t the only one, I’m a idiot who purchased one as well based on so called compatibilties. Only thing it is compatible with is disappointment and frustration and no tech support

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You are correct it was offered to be replaced back in December, however according to the support email I received “we could replace the hub for you. I don’t expect it to be the silver bullet for this issue” and from several emails from other frustrated users it seems more of an operational issue and not a hardware issue. Which makes me even less excited about Smartthings. It makes me nervous that they can sell this on their website as “Home Security kits from #389” There is no way I would ever trust this as a security solution at this point. It’s way to unreliable to trust it.

Waiting for the next big thing from another company to fill in where Smartthings failed.

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I’m curious what devices you can’t get to work? It could just be the hub, or the distance from the hub to the devices.

Can’t really help unless we have specifics. But judging from the tone, its way past trying to fix it, and you just want your money back.

Too bad, lots of us have this working and have helped people figure things out as a community site. Would love to help, but I think you just want to make noise.

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I’ve gotten more help in the community sections than I have from Smartthings support.

That was a very frustrated post, posted in the middle of the night after Smartthings App sent me a text stating that my garage door had been open for over 10 minutes, which was a rule I had built. Of course after having a mild heart attack and checking the garage door wasn’t even open, just another SmartThings glitch. That angry post actually led to some good emails/PMs from other folks having similar issues. I am way beyond getting a refund I think since it seems according Smartthings that the hub isn’t having issues.
I have trouble connecting mainly Zigbee items including actual Smartthings products. I ended up having to pair several of the devices in my microwave, not on of course, because it acted as a faraday cage for the 2.4ghz interference. Nothing would ever pair, but once paired worked most of the time. Now, lately I am having troubles with both the Zigbee and the Z-wave items, since I am getting so many false positives and missing notifications.
It just doesn’t seem like a product that works. Especially one that works the way SmartThings advertises it as such.

I got burned on the Wink hub, and after doing a bunch of research thought SmartThings would be the right solution but it seems to have as many issues as well.

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Dude, no hub is going to fix the radio interference issues that you’re having.
How is it you think this problem belongs to smartThings?

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Excuse my jumping in, but if that’s the case, you may indeed have a faulty hub. You should’ve taken a replacement offer if only to eliminate this possibility. Then, if it still didn’t work, you could swear and stomp your feet and nobody would blame you. :smile:

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Indeed. I have all sorts of issues with SmartThings (and have been quite vocal about them), but nothing like what @djtrickee describes, which sounds like something other than what most of us are putting up with.

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I have been trying to fix issues with my hub for 4 weeks now. Contacted tech support numerous times and still issues. Took 5 times to get door lock to pair with hub, wemo doesn’t not work well with st despite st saying it does. Tech support confirmed this with me. Hue doesn’t work well and neither does iPhone. What does work with this hub. Im having to uninstall and reinstall devices almost daily to get them to work. Some do not. Lights are on when they show off, sometimes come on in middle of night. If you have been offered a new hub take it to see if that works that’s a lot more than what I have been offered, which is nothing, despite my current defective hub of only 2 months being nothing more than a paperweight at this time.

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personally I believe the frustration and lack of support leads to the asterixed words. I have resisted the urge numerous times to voice my opinion due to the lack of support for the defective hub that I have owned for less than 2 months, and no I have not been offered a replacement only that we are working on it. So nowI basically have a useless hub, except for the frustration inducing aspect. So if you find the asterixed words off putting, maybe consider why these asterixed words are being posted, defective hub/app and lack of support to rectify this.

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Hi Allan,

It looks like you have an open ticket with us. We’ll stay on top of that and keep you updated.

None of the issues you describe in this post sound like they’re related to the hub itself.

Our WeMo and Hue integrations are being worked on as I type this. These are changes to SmartApps and device types that run in our cloud infrastructure - not on the hub itself. Please jump into this thread if you’d like to talk to the developer who is working on these changes:

I truly apologize if you feel like you haven’t been supported well by my team. We’re absolutely here to help you. In this case we didn’t offer to replace your hub as that would just require you to set everything up again and not offer a solution to the issues you’re describing.

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It’s not only the wemo and hue which by the way st still advertises compatible with on cnet. It’s my schlage door lock, ge light bulbs, and the st sensors themselves all showing wrong status at times mist all the time. I gave had and continue to uninstalled and reinstall devices. Iphone dashboard shows devices some of the times so yes I agree not all hub but the app as well. Like I said some of the St devices showing wrong status at tunes so st setup cannot be trusted. As far as setup goes I’ve done that a couple times already and like I said earlier I have to reinstall devices regularly

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HELP! I am in similar circumstance - tho I have not, as yet, received any replies to the two support ticket requests I submitted a week ago. How long does it typically take to get a reply to support request (not being sarcastic here - genuinely wondering if I’m being impatient that it’s been a week or if there is a glitch and you typically reply faster)?

I have ST devices (motion) that the app won’t find (tho my other ST motion found itself); intermittent issues with some lights (Philips Hue) but they work beautifully thru the HUE app; an error message trying to add Hue lightstrip - ‘failed to save page: bulbDiscovery’–tho the Hue lites are setup and working fine thru the Hue app). Last nite the front door unlocked itself out of nowhere–NOT an automated routine–tho I was nowhere near my phone & app!!! Sometimes I get an alert and sometimes I don’t (iPhone sms & email).

Not a ‘pro’ here but I am in the IT industry so not completely a ‘level 1 user’ where all of these issues are likely ‘user error’. If they ARE user error, happy to admit it but just need a little help here and can get nothing thus far - Tyler, can you assist??? I was so excited to get these products and automate things but now feel like all the money I just invested in everything was a waste…