Is SmartThings development dead?

I got a message today from SmartThings marketing about how great the SmartThings/Phillips hue integration is.

At the same time that there is a known problem with the SmartThings/Phillips hue integration. There is a possible fix in beta for that problem, but it is not an open beta and the fix has not yet been released.

So, yeah, I vote for leaving marketing out of it. :wink:

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Wait a minute, I am a very welcoming crowd of one! ;))) see, youā€™re welcome too! Ha ha

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Letā€™s not group my factual statements into the absurd. The silence, once again, is deafening.

Yet I still want this platform to work and be better. I am done holding my breath. Show me, until then I will call it like I see it.

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The silence is so much better than the hundreds of impatient screaming posts last year demanding the release of Hub V2.

As I said in earlier postā€¦ I rather see positive surprises than hear promises that arenā€™t kept (migration tool, anyone?, Bluetooth?, ā€¦?).

The most delightful thing I can think of is If Hub V3 (yes, V3) appears on shelves with absolutely zero advance marketing or noticeā€¦

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Donā€™t really keep up to date with the marketing side of things but from the engineering perspective our team is the largest its ever been. Weā€™re also still looking for more engineers: https://www.smartthings.com/careers/list . Robert Parker (Director of Engineering for Amazon Echo) also recently joined the team as the SVP of Engineering. He is focused on regaining consumer trust and growing the platform to make it household name. I canā€™t speak for everyone at ST but from my perspective engineering is booming and weā€™re doing some pretty awesome stuff.

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There are several reasons why I decided to go with smart things after extensive research on wink, homeseer, vera, and some other platforms.

This forum was the thing that made me go with smartthings, despite a lot of frustrated users over performance issues. People on Reddit saying ā€œdonā€™t use smartthings, itā€™s unreliable and cloud basedā€ pretty much every time it was mentioned. I liked that it is open enough that someone like me can tinker with it and write my own smart apps and device handlers. I like that it supports Zigbee AND z-Wave. I like that it is backed by a large company, yet they use a publicly view-able github for almost all (if not all) of their apps and device handlers. Most of all, I like the active community of people on this forum. I asked a simple question about bathroom vents and got 58 replies on the thread.

Smartthings is not perfect, but I do think it is getting better and better, and development certainly isnā€™t dead. Keep an eye out on the announcements thread here in the forum. You will find development is far from dead.

To the SmarThings staff, understand that when glitches do happen people will get frustrated, and vent here on the forums. But know that we appreciate all the communication. Keep it up!

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IoT was all the rage for the past couple of years (since Google bought Nest actually), but now itā€™s fading away. We can see it across the board, not just at Samsung. Development still continues to be sure, but the shine has worn off. You canā€™t sell the same story two years in a row if thereā€™s no visible progress.

What would make things seem a little bit easier would be to collate everything into a single place.

Just in this one post Iā€™ve found 3 separate places SmartThings are posting:

https://twitter.com/smartthings
http://developer.smartthings.com/
http://devblog.smartthings.com/

Why cant you put all that information on the forums just with tags for the reliant people. Maybe [DEV] Post Title or [News] Post Title

Iā€™ve been with SmartThings since day 1 of UK release and i didnt know about some of these places.

And speaking of the forums - this latest update is HORRIBLE! Its made everything vanish (new posts I mean) so you have to go digging for everything! I think thereā€™s a reason why iā€™ve never seen this type of forum software before.

Kraeg

The title incites argument. I can tell you that if you ask my wallet, ST development is far far far from deadā€¦

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This is the result of us constantly whining on this forum. If you remember this community pre-v2 madness, this was the place where news would hit first. New integrations, new developments, new updates, new contests, new ideas, all were shared here first, before they were published on the blog and then there wasnā€™t a Slack channel, a Developer Blog. They are trying to avoid the negativity. And I donā€™t blame them.

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Oh yes it is. Especially the new part. :slight_smile:

Thank You

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Ha haā€¦ this actually angered me. More marketing BS for an integration that has been in ā€˜Labsā€™ for years, with no ā€˜officialā€™ (or local) support.

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Donā€™t forget, the last ā€œWeeklyā€ update from @alex was on July 23. I see where Patrick is coming from. I still see some weirdness in my system, 3 missed scheduled events in the past 3 weeks, thatā€™s equal to what I missed in the past 3 months, better??? And @ady624 is coding around the issue

More transparency, consistent updates would be nice :slight_smile:
Rick

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The size has grown, but the velocity has dropped, which means that the majority of resources are tied with maintenance. Practically no new features were introduced since V2 release. No Bluetooth, no USB, no migration tool, no backup. The mobile app is as pathetic as itā€™s ever been.

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Whatā€™s wrong with that? If he can do it, itā€™s only because of STā€™s flexibility. Try doing that on Wink, Iris, etcā€¦I know we all want perfection, but lets not forget that nothing is good enough for perfectionists, or else we would still be flipping light switches manually, because they are trully the most reliable.

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Not to mention ST is in transition from a startup to a branch of a very large company. There is a huge cultural shift going on, as well.

Formerly, there were (probably) no repercussions when engineers shared their excitement about new features publicly, including stuff that never saw the light of day. Now there is. [Been there; got the tee shirt!]

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Now, thatā€™s funny. Transition occurred more than two years ago, if you havenā€™t noticed. Not to mention that according to SmartThing execs, they would still operate independently and make their own decisions as to product launches, staffing, etc.

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Many of us on the forum have been critical of his lack of follow-through with his promise. Or that he didnā€™t wrap it up and say, ā€œWeā€™re past the crisis & Iā€™m not going to continue weekly updates.ā€

Perhaps he was told to stop. For all we know, he has ā€œdecided to spend more time with familyā€ or ā€œdecided to pursue other interestsā€ (or similar courtesy words afforded those at the executive level) and ST isnā€™t ready to make an announcement.

More likely heā€™s just heads-down trying to work through issues we know nothing about & have no reason to knowā€¦

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True, dat! But two years is a long time in this industry & there are many levels of transition. To wit: what happened to Nestā€¦

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Or, perhaps heā€™s looking for a new job. Itā€™s anyoneā€™s guess really. :smiley:

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