I wish I could join Smartthings

Think about every time you open Facebook, Amazon, or any other website…

How among us it that you just finished doing for a new getting pan on Amazon and Facebook is full of advertisements about frying pans. Intuitive? No.

But, I use that clever bit of info to my advantage.

When I want to get my wife something, or someone something, I go on Google and Amazon and I do a stock search for things like, “16 year old son’s birthday gift xbox one” Then while I’m found all of the rest of my internet stuff, my computer is doing the doing search for me and putting them in the sidebars on Facebook and other sites. When one comes up I like, I click on it. Gift shopping done, as well as balancing the check book.

This really is not relevant to SmartThings or Home Automation…
Home Automation is a fairly frivolous endeavor regardless. It’s far from a need. It shouldn’t be viewed or expected to be as magical or applicable as a smart phone or the entire INTERNET is. Also, what you described is just an ad network. A conglomerate of solicitation designed to annoy the majority of people and make a poor attempt at predicting what you want to buy… but when you share the same computer login… it’s no longer that cleaver… merely a hindrance…

I’m just not convinced these are valid arguments against SmartThings or what any company is doing in the HA space.

I like Z-Wave too. Unfortunately, SmartThings have really screwed the pooch on this one. :smile:

Well, SmartThings definitely feels kind of copy-cat-esque right now in the since that it does sell itself as something more than it is right out of the box. But for someone who loves to tinker and DIY - it’s a fun way to make subtle and sometimes not so subtle improvements to their living situation.

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Also, for someone to go as far as recommending a competitor due to the things mentioned seems drastic… but I’m a new person around here so I don’t know what things were like a year ago… or how they seem to be going. But I know what else is out there, the alternative “competitors” and they seem far from better alternatives.

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Yes you can ask, but that’s hardly smart or automated. You have to ask. What if you forgot to ask about everything that could be impending. Would it wake you up an hour earlier if there was a traffic accident blocking your main artery?

This isn’t AI. Our phones do this now (at least mine does), of course we have to take them out of our pocket and look at them. Next step, use that same mechanism to modify times and schedules we already have set up in our “smart” homes.

Same for location. Timers and presence sensors are inadequate. If my commute time is 40 minutes, and I am still at the office an hour later than usual, my smart home should react differently, no? Heck SmartThings can’t even set the mode right if I arrive later than the last mode change (but yes, I have written a SmartApp to address this shortcoming).

You might not want to ask Alexa anything right about now. I’ve heard that she’s busy

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But it relevant. It’s relevant because of the system as a whole. What is home automation?

You said it perfectly. Sounds see it as a stupid endeavour to be more lazy, other see it as an amazing adventure, others, a hobby, and others, well everyone had an opinion if what it is.

But the basics of it is exactly what you said.

I’m not arguing against or for ST, my point is that home automation is what you make it out to be.

Honestly, I feel that you are expecting way too much out of the technology. ST I’d not a work right out of the box system. Well, it is to a degree, but a very small one at that. ST is a system for the serious HA diy person.

The vast majority of the people on this forum are here because they are the 1%, the ones that push the envelope and look beyond what is now. ST provides a platform for this development. Look at rule machine by @bravenel, it is probably the most advanced piece of software that is available on the ST platform. ST allows that to happen.

Yes, it’s unstable. Yes there are problems. Yes there is a ton of speculation.

But, for those that wasn’t more than what comes in an Apple box, ST allows it to happen.

HA had been around for decades, and it had been slow to advance. But the pace is picking up, rapidly. Hardware has advanced, production has advanced, software has advanced.

Do you think the cloud is new? Not at all. 25 years ago you had to log into a separate phone number to check your email. That server was essentially a cloud server. Everything off-site from you, is the cloud.

The home control aspect at a workable and affordable rate is just coming to grow. Soon it will bloom, and it will be amazing. What we see note is just the tip of the iceberg.

A true Jarvis system is not that far away, for all of us.

Actually Google plus integrated into your system can do just this.

“Right now in Chelsea it is 54° with clear skies and Sun. Throughout the day you can expect more of the same with a high of 54 and a lie of 29”

Mines working :smiley:

It is for SmartThings as the platform exists now. It has problems with hard schedules, let alone flexible ones. I am simply looking towards the future, and why SmartThings may end up in a crash and burn. While SmartThings is incredibly flexible, it is also incredibly rigid. Changing things because of a minute change in your schedule or habits is a big PITA, involving a trip to the IDE, or going in and out of half a dozen SmartApps, etc.

We HAVE traffic information, weather information, and our schedules, meetings, appointments, and location all in the cloud. If the platform is cloud based, why do we need presence sensors? We can use our phones with SmartThings, but the current software is poor, and works backwards. If seems a simple thing to say “have my home ready by the time I get home”, instead of waiting in the driveway for a couple of minutes after I arrive for the presence sensor to be detected so I can open the garage door without setting off the alarm, and then have the HVAC et al start to do their thing.

So many SmartThings are unfinished/broken (and have been for quite some time), I am certainly not putting my expectations with them. Frankly, with the exception of external access and notifications, Zigbee and Z-Wave protocols, what SmartThings is currently capable of I was doing 15 years ago, and far more reliably with regard to events/actions and schedules. Fifteen years later I don’t think it unreasonable to have expectations that run a little higher.

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You’re referring to Google Now. How is this integrated with Echo or SmartThings?

You definitely like “your” Alexa, even your voice sounds like her now :smiley:

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I use my phones as presence sensors. They are the only ones I have as presence sensors. They work great.

Yes, I look to the future and wish it was now, but it’s not.

I have high expectations of ST, and honestly it lives up to them… But to do so it needs my help.

The system as a whole just isn’t out of the box ready for a star trek reality.

Yes, Google now. Honestly, I’m not sure if it is as I do not use it. But search ifttt, I bet there is some way to get it to work.

I’m was just saying, the technology is here… It’s just in islands and we’re still learning how to build the bridges.

That was my initial point. Pretty much everything I am expecting to see integrated in HA is pretty much already on my phone. Just need to get the two talking together.

I wonder what up and coming IoT/HA platform might be able to pull that off… (c;

I don’t know, but I can tell you this… I’ll come home to a cold house beefier I but Apple crap. And I’m only loyal to what works best for my needs. Right now, ST does that. I can control everything in the house via my phone or voice.

I’ve set up everything with redundancy.

So you said that SmartThings does nothing with the data it collects, is poorly automated, is sluggish and (Samsung) doesn’t really have the expertise to develop a homogeneous solution. And I don’t really disagree BUT let me ask you, why do you think we need a centralized solution to orchestrate our habitual lives?

Why not have Nest thermostats work independently to adjust the temperatures in our homes, the Arlo cams to watch the surroundings of our homes, the light bulbs to come on and off when we are not home and the doors to lock when we leave and unlock when we arrive? I thinks this is the future of HA. Individual companies that make products, to build them reliable and autonomous. Cut the middle man, cut the clutter! Nest is certainly betting on this and so does Hue, Arlo and many more.

I was referring to Google.

Same here… except for Z-Wave and Zigbee, and short of my Hues, am having second thoughts about them.

I don’t. If I could replace Z-Wave and Zigbee with something with more open and accessible API’s (like a simple IP protocol) I would. Hopefully they’re coming. I know I made a new year’s resolution to not acquire any more devices that neglect that. Maybe that means a WiFi’d PI or similar with a relay behind every switch plate, or maybe we’ll see something OEM’d soon.

My wishes for Google’s involvement is simply for data integration, as they already have all of mine. I am actually a big fan of local communication, and use that wherever possible. Although there is a need for cloud based access, IMHO the network should not be dependant on it.

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Believe me, Nest may look like a bunch of individual “products”, but Google absolutely wants to rule your home. Their slogan is “The Thoughtful Home” (not the “Thoughtful <device>”).

It is not a different technical strategy, but a different marketing strategy. Nest believes that a hubless home is the most, ummm, thoughtful way of doing things.

Each new Nest branded device added to your home automatically integrates with the rest (or if they don’t, they will). Products from other vendors that are certified “works with Nest” are also a part of the strategy.

Google is not a huge hardware vendor, so why are they doing this… again, it’s all about the data mining. Google is an advertising company and that will always be their #1 source of revenue. Even the ads that will play in their self-driving cars that take you to the restaurant paying the highest bid-placement fee.

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