Personally, I haven’t let the price be a part of my decisions… If I think it’s cool I just do it… But I never pay full retail…
Just decide what’s important to you and tailor your projects to that… If it’s money, extend your project time frame… Our whatever.
Yea, what I call “full-blown” automation is probably just beginner’s stuff for you. The way I see it, the biggest part of the cost in setting this up is in the devices. I figure that if I get it running with ST and like it, but find that ST reliability isn’t good enough or that their architecture has limitations that stop me from doing something I really want, I have the option of switching over to HomeSeer or openHAB.
There’s a line between when you’ve spent more than you’ll reasonably save back. With my previous homes, the heavy duty pond pumps and the lighting and heat needed in the forest made for simpler math. But that was partially because I’d also spent more on the basics due to the WAF (wife acceptance factor) of a dark forest; the Home Automation was an easy sell. So the several hundred dollars for the base were basically covered as a security cost. SmartThings is still just a bit too unpredictable for that role right now.
Honestly, with the price of devices, looking for cost payback probably isn’t the best idea.
Take for example…
1 smart switch @ 50.00
1 motion sensor @ 30.00
We will not include the cost of a hub.
If you already have one led light that stays on for 12 hours per day before automation. 13 watts X 12 hours X 30 days = 4.68 kwh per month @ .125 cents per kwh = 59 cents per month
If you automate that bulb with the hardware above and you are able to save 4 hours of ruin time per day, you are saving… 13 watts X 4 hours X 30 days = 1.56 kwh X .125 cents per kwh = 20 cents savings per month.
Now take your 80.00 investment / 20 cents = 33.3 years for recovery time.
My point, either buy that stuff at a huge discount, or find a reason other than cost savings.
More or less the conclusion I’m coming to
Full home automation is definitely not for the shallow wallet… but it can be done on a budget if you take your time and do your research.
I fell into the greatest deal ever when I was searching for switches… I nabbed over 50 GE smart switches for an average price of $8.33 each… yeah… I know right…
Just look for deals and folks are always selling things…
@Michael_Shutt do not fall for that. It’s a trap. If you get into Home Automation. DO NOT look for deals. You’ll end up getting stuff you really don’t need, like Arlo cams, Blink cams, a gazillion IRIS products that just sit in your garage because you don’t have time to play with you gadgets…Wait a minute…yeah, you get the point that’s what I did “look for deals”. Loool…just a joke
Hey, I finally installed 15 devices the other day from the pile in the garage… Too bad it grows faster than that…lol
I think it’ll be something like this that’ll get me to start. Any advice on how to find these deals?
Most of them get posted in the Deals section of the forum. 
BTW, you’ll usually see the best deals when a new model comes out and the old-line is being discontinued, or when a retailer is cutting back stock for whatever reason.
Last year after the company that owned wink went bankrupt and its future was somewhat in doubt, Home Depot decided to cut back on a lot of their stocks of wink related products. That’s when a lot of the really low price switch deals were available.
I doubt if the price will go that low again, but there is a new model line from GE coming out now, the Z wave plus line that starts with a 14 instead of a 12. So I do expect the ones that start with the 12 to begin going on sale in the next month or two.
Similarly, Leviton is coming out with new zwave plus models soon, which should mean eventual sales on their older Z wave models.
So sometimes it’s just timing. 
@bamarayne : can you post some how to for the intercom you setup using echo devices? Would love to have that feature - thanks.
You have to have speakers to. You can not push messages to echo devices.
Check it all out here… fyi, btw version coming soon
for me its the little things that you don’t really notice until they stop working that make automation great. for example when I open the garage man door the lights in the garage automatically go on and they turn off again when the door automatically lock 5 minutes after it has been closed. it does not seem like much but the battery in the contact sensor just died and my wife has been complaining about having to “turn on the lights the old fashioned way”. there are many other small examples but in my house the big things are really just for show its the little things that are really useful and get buy in from the better half (although she complained bitterly when I first changed every switch in the house to zwave).
Which z-wave switches you guys recommend? And which z-wave or WiFi relays?
I’m in India, and the z-wave switches would not fit our switch board dimensions, also I need to keep in mind 240v support, which is why I prefer the relay route so that I can keep using the existing switches. But I find the relays and switches to be costly, between $ 40-50.
I went with hue bulbs for the time, but would like my other non hue bulbs and loads to be integrated as well and I really am in a fix as I could not locate a low cost solution which can work with my existing switches.
I came across sonoff, but they do not have a in-wall relay as yet which kind of defeats the purpose.
Zwave frequency varies by region, is assigned at the time a device is manufactured, and cannot be changed afterwards.
http://products.z-wavealliance.org
The smartthings hub is currently manufactured on only two frequencies:
908.42 For the US
868.42 For the U.K.
However, the frequency for India is 865.22 , so it will be a completely different set of devices. And you would need to find a different controller.
If you go to the link above, you will be able to see what devices are certified on that frequency.
Currently, it appears that Fibaro, Hogar, and Vision all make some products available on the Indian Z wave frequency.
Aha, I’m aware of the frequency regions, and chose to go with US frequency because of the Costs. In India, one z-wave switch would cost around $200. I already have few items like the ST itself along with the schlage lock on US frequency. I prefer to go with ZigBee/wifi route so that in future if the cost comes down then I could switch over to regional supported controllers.
@vbhoj74 Were you able to get US Zwave devices in India? It seems that India mobile GSM frequency overlaps the US Zwave frequency.
I’ve the smartthings as my first home automation experiment at my place. I’m only using it with Philips Hue and just maybe one or two Z-wave.us freq devicces. We now are authorised partners in India for plenty of home automation OEMs like Zipato, Qubino etc, and everything with IN freq.
I will probably do a write up or video of my current SmartThings setup. My system is pretty massive now, nearly everything in my 7000 square foot house