Hi, I am switching from a Vera3 to ST. Once I have finished the “Select Join or Leave Existing Z-Wave Network” process, how do I convert the ST into the primary controller (vs. secondary to the Vera?).
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Community support is great, but it means nothing if the platform is broken. New issues crop up almost weekly and there’s nothing that community can do about it. I’m not an ST hater by any means and have been an active developer for more than a year, but I’m forced to make a switch to a more stable platform.
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Which platform are you switching to?
I’m curious also…switching to what? My wife got me ST for Father’s Day, but I’m still not sold on it.
Bon Voyage! We will be here when you come back after you realize that the grass is Greener on the other side of the fans. By that time we all @ ST we’ill be on Hub 2.0 with little or no problems to boot with more choices than other platforms offer! 
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Different platforms have different pluses and minuses. Right now, there’s no clear winner.
SmartThings has a great vision, great staff, and a great community. But things that run fine on Monday fail without warning on Tuesday, even the simplest things like turning on a light in the morning. The usual fix is to uninstall and reinstall whatever failed, at which point it will work for awhile and then something else will fail.
Staples connect, in contrast, made reliability their top priority from the beginning because their target market was small businesses, but they got that reliability by significantly limiting both the devices and features they offer. No geofencing, no IFTTT channel, no custom code. Only specific brands work. If you read their forums, the main complaints are about wanting more devices.
Vera works well for zwave, but nothing else.
Iris is usually described as “broad but shallow” and charges a monthly fee.
HomeKit is just starting to roll out, doesn’t even support sensors yet. A significant update will arrive with iOS9 in the Fall, but it will likely be 2016 before it’s a real competitor. And of course IOS only.
Insteon has a lot of features but right now it’s really hard to tell how things will work once the HomeKit integration is complete. Investing in their non HomeKit stuff seems like a waste right now, but the HK pieces aren’t yet available.
Amazon Echo, if you have strong WiFi, works great to control Philips Hue lights, but that’s about the limit of its connected home options at the moment. However, it’s getting better all the time, and we can expect many more integrations in the coming months. If you just want lights that come on when you get home, or at certain times, and the ability to turn them off after you’re in bed, Echo + Hue will be easy, reliable, and fun. (This is now the main way we control lights at my house. We use the $15 GE link bulbs with the Hue bridge. Everybody likes it.)
Wink has a reputation for poor engineering quality (read any review).
Nest and “works with Nest” has a good reputation but still limited devices.
Peq, sold at Best Buy and Walmart, is a re-label of zigbee devices sold by others. Good devices, reasonable prices, but there is a monthly fee. Best Buy doesn’t really promote it much, it’s hard even to find reviews.
Several big companies offer systems similar to PEQ (often the same devices) but linked to a monitored security system and with much higher prices, including much higher monthly fees. That includes ATT Digital Life, Xfinity Home, and ADT Pulse.
Much talk about other no fee home automation systems which are still in development and aren’t shipping yet, including OOMI and google’s Brillo, but I’ll wait until they’re actually available to evaluate.
So lots of choices (more if you include pre orders for stuff you can’t actually buy yet), but nothing perfect.
My personal guess, which is purely a guess, is that by summer 2016 there will be several reliable plug and play systems which would meet my needs for under $3500, so I’m putting off any major decisions until then.
For now, it just comes down to your personal preferences and priorities.
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I’m migrating my Z-Wave network to Staples Connect. It’s not a rush decision. I’ve been running SC in parallel with ST for a couple of month now and I’m very pleased with its performance and reliability.
Pros:
- It’s not dependent on the Internet connection (not cloud-based), yet everything can be controlled remotely over the Internet using either mobile app or a web portal.
- Z-Wave support is more solid than ST. Particularly, some Z-wave switches that take forever to update in ST when toggled manually, are updated instantaneously.
- Mobile app is simple and intuitive. It never quit on me so far.
- It has a simple rules engine. Scenes (called “activities”) can be triggered either manually or using simple if-then rules.
- Works well with Philips Hue (tested).
- Works with Lutron dimmers and remotes.
Cons:
- Not as flexible as ST. There’s no custom apps and no published API. However, considering how badly broken ST platform has become lately, it hardy even matters.
- No geofencing or mobile presence detection. Again, considering how notoriously unreliable ST presence detection has been, I don’t really care.
- No IFTTT integration. This is really a bummer. It’s been promised long time ago, but no cigar (sound familiar?
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Yes, the Staples Conect is far from perfect and is not open, but at this point in time reliability is an overriding factor for me. Somehow, SmartThings have managed to discredit the whole idea of smart home for my family. My WAF is below a freezing point. I owe it to myself and to my family to prove that smart home works, albeit in a simpler form. That’s why I said “I’m forced to switch”.
Anyway, hopefully I’ll finish migrating all my Z-Wave devices to Staples Connect this weekend.
I’m afraid there no grass left on this side. We’ve been fed manure for way too long.
By that time we all @ ST we’ill be on Hub 2.0 with little or no problems to boot with more choices than other platforms offer!
Sure, believe what you want to believe. I’ll keep ST hub around just in case and for random hacking.
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Actually, Vera used to be #1 platform for integration with non-Z-Wave devices thanks to its open plug-in architecture and available USB port. It can talk to any TCP, UDP or serial device using plug-ins written in Lua. The main problem with Vera was its ugly UI and horrible mobile app.
Anyone that can help here?