My experience with RACV SmartThings in Australia and support so far

Hi All,
This is more a rant than anything.
I purchased the RACV SmartThings WiFi bundle in December 18. Mostly using Z-Wave, Hue and other IP based integrations.

All was fine until all my Z-Wave devices (25) stopped working last week. After some digging I’ve found the Z-Wave module is listed as disabled in the IDE.

I logged a ticket to see what can be done…and that’s where it stopped.
I’ve spoken verbally with RACV but they don’t seem to have a functioning support process yet. I had to use 3 levels of IVR and choose “Other” to get to a person (who found a person, who found a person).
Samsung Australia don’t have an option to log a ticket as the product isn’t listed.

RACV over the phone have been helpful but they can’t do anything but pester Samsung. They’ve said “due to different timezones” several times so i don’t think they’re getting direct contact. Disappointing for RACV.

After some further digging I think i can confirm there is no backup option so I expect I’ll be asking for a RA or starting again.

Isn’t HA fun?

bummer. I assume you can’t enable it from the Hub utilities page in the IDE?

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Hi Jimmy, Yes I tried that but the status stays as disabled. Interestingly the logs don’t show any action; trying to set the status nor a error as a result.

As an update I just finished an SMS conversation with RACV; RACV are getting on the phone with Samsung shortly. :crossed_fingers:

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interesting. good luck!

Update: At this point its confirmed they don’t have a backup and/or restore procedure.
Again its disappointing for a mature product they expect you to start again if something breaks.

Well we could have told you that haha

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Yet another update; no response yet from Samsung/ST. I did see activity in the hub with Z-Wave “starting up” but the the status still says disabled and no other logs (showing a failure).

Tech stuff aside; its going to be super disappointing if (when) T wait a week and they just say its dead and there nothing we can do.


maybe @Kianoosh_Karami knows what would cause this strange z-wave ebhavior

Yeah, I think the user may have contacted our support, and I worked with out support team to determine the next steps. I am hoping this issue can be resolved quickly.

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Hi,
The “user” is here :wink:
I’ve spent the last week speaking to RACV as the retailer as you have no channel in Australia or a way to log a ticket or chat in Australia.

I logged a ticket in the US over 6 days ago with no response so far
Apparently you are speaking to RACV now (this morning) but it hasn’t been easy for them to get help either.

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Hey Andrew, I ll PM you and we can go from there.

Kianoosh

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Hi @AndrewBadge Did you get it working in the end ?

Sorry for slow reply. No solution apart send the device back and here’s a replacement kit.
No restoration from backup. Start again…queue anger.

I dumped SmartThings and moved to Homey (in frustration).

My guess is that they disabled the z-wave on the Australian hub on purpose.

See discussion Smartthing Hub in Australia?

The frequency that z-wave works on in the USA is illegal to be operated on here in Australia. The z-wave frequency in Australia is different. http://www.smartesthome.com.au/article/what-is-the-most-popular-z-wave-smart-home-platform-in-australia

I am in Australia and waiting and waiting for Samsung to bring out the ST Hub with the Australian z-wave frequency so we can purchase and use Australian z-wave devices.

Unfortunately got my hopes up and looks like the Australian hub from RACV is just the USA one with z-wave disabled :frowning:

It’s a completely different model number, so i doubt that. They’ve also been adding fingerprints for support of Z-wave australian devices.

Hmmm…You have me very confused. I’m living in South Australia using my smartthings hub I purchased from Jb hi-fi here for a couple of months now and a couple of weeks after I purchased it, I purchased an aeotec smart switch (zwave) and the aeotec multisensor (zwave) from smarthome.com.au. I’m guessing they would all be approved for use with our zwave frequency but I had no issues at all pairing them and they have been rock solid since the day I connected them.

Hi, The RACV device definitely has the correct Australian frequency. I had it working all fine until the hub broke.

I purchased the Samsung Smart hub a few weeks ago. I’m in Australia.

Just trying to work out how to set my garage so it opens and closes remotely. Being blonde, I’ve left my garage door up so many times.

Can any Australians help? I have a B& D garage door, controlled with a remote. I purchased a z-wave garage door controller, but I don’t have a “Wall Mount Remote Control”. But the z-wave Garage door controller I believe only works with a Wall Mount Remote Control.

Love to here from Aussies with the same issue??