Lowes joined the Zigbee alliance recently as a low level member and has committed to using the ZHA standard going forward. (They had been using a proprietary Zigbee version.) The new devices are made by centralite and seem to be working pretty well with SmartThings. Lots of people using them and much discussion in the forums.
ST staff has confirmed in the forums that the line is being officially reviewed for ST compatibility.
Lowes also revamped their business model for rules engine support a little bit, making it only two tiers rather than three and an add-on. So essentially “basic” which doesn’t do much, and “premium” which does everything they offer.
This implies to me that their $10 month business model was working pretty well for them even with the advanced features.
We’ll just have to see how it goes, but I think they’re trying to position themselves as the DIY alternative to the new Xfinity home automation offering which will be in the “do it for me” category.
I don’t think they’re intending to open it as a developer platform of any kind, though. This really will just standardize the devices that can be used.
(BTW if you see a lot of complaints from existing customers about the new version, most of those seem to be related to the fact that they don’t understand they have to exclude their Zwave devices from their old system before moving into the new hub. That part of the migration education was not really spelled out. )f