I’ve had a good experience with ST, but my enthusiasm has been muted by the extremely poor roll-out of the v2 hub and the subsequent devolution of the support situation. Now, I don’t know what to do. I’m ready to drop more money in my system, but I lack the confidence to justify it.
I’m a devoted “I’m not getting sucked into the Apple ecosystem” adherent (as I type this on my MBP that my wife bought me to help support her business in my free time(!!!)), but I think I’m stuck waiting on seeing how fast they ramp up and I may just give up, sell the dog, and resign myself to living off apples for the rest of my life. I hate their closed processes, but they do usually produce quality products. Smart things was most of the good about apple without the shortcomings. Now, it’s not. I hope they get it squared away soon.
Good luck with that - with Samsung management coming in, even claiming they would ‘let ST run their own ship’, I can pretty much guarantee you we won’t be seeing any significant ‘ownership’ by the ST executive staff.
Honestly, I’d love to see all of THEM be required to run this stuff (in more than just ‘basic configuration’) in their homes. I’m guessing their spouses would be tossing them out on their rear ends (as mine is very very close to that now).
What type of devices are most people with problems running? All of my devices are zwave and so far, I haven’t had any problems with it since switching to v2 from v1. I’ve had scheduling issues with some devices with v1, but unpairing and pairing them again fixed it, but for now for a few months with v2, no issues. My night light comes on and off in a timely fashion, same with my christmas tree tree lights. Only thing that have somewhat of an issue was the thermostat but it’s not entirely the fault of ST since Honeywell Wifi thermostats aren’t fully supported. And with presence sensors, ever since I moved away from ST mobile sensor to Life360, the problems are gone too. Maybe it’s more the devices that’s being paired to ST that’s unreliable?
The same devices will generally run just fine with a different controller.
There are some device-specific problems, like the current known issue with Sonos, but again the same Sonos devices will run just fine if ST is not in the picture.
If you look at the forum threads with hundreds of messages on scheduling issues you’ll see that many of the problems have to do with backend scheduler issues, completely independent of the devices themselves. Even just changing the mode (no devices at all involved) can fail.
it’s tempting to think that there’s something one group of customers is doing right and another doing wrong, but it appears to be much more random than that. One person even posted screenshots of their account showing a device they’d never seen before named “dining room sensor”–when they don’t even have a dining room! Obviously a platform issue…
Certainly there can occasionally be a bad device. Or a setup error. But the reliability issues reported have mostly been a different kind.
If your system is working well for you, I’m glad to hear it, and I hope it continues for you. But most of those who have unfortunately run into reliability issues have simply been unlucky.
The system is not a hot mess for me. In fact it’s still the best thing going by a long shot. When some other device can support:
HW Wifi thermostats
Solaredge Solar
Nest Protects
Notify laundry finished and people home.
Aggregate Occupancy simply and easily.
Notify of intrusion…
Allow me to setup dashboards in minutes…
Hands off maintenance for months on end… (except when I play).
Android AND iOS (in case I want to switch).
All for < $100 and < 10 watts (I’m not going to run or maintain a server, been there done that, no time for it).
Then I’ll be there. Until then, you’d have to rip my hub from my lifeless hands. It’s made my house very smart very quickly with little effort, and came with this great community.
Which saddens me even more that the solvable issues with it aren’t effectively addressed. The, big stuff, the hard things to execute and bring to market - are there!
I was just like you a couple of months ago. I wanted a DIY home security system. I looked at a few vendors and decided on smart things. I know there are problems with smart things - however all the other systems had problems too. I choose smart things basically for the same reasons you picked it as your first.
So far my experience has been ok. I am only a month into using smart things. In the beginning of setup - I would get a message that the hub was offline however I was still receiving activity alerts. I bought the kit and have been able to have all my things working fine. However, I had one of the multi-purpose sensors get “stuck” in open state. I hope it doesn’t happen too often. I had to remove it from the app, pop out the battery and then add it back in.
I also have the Schlage connect deadbolt and have noticed that it is missing activity. For example, I know my brother-in-law entered my house about an hour ago using a unique code but it doesn’t show up in the app. I think this may be a problem with Schlage more than Smart things.
I also recently purchased the Aeon recessed door sensors that I haven’t had to the chance to install yet. I couldn’t figure out how to use the smart things multi purpose sensors without cutting out a section of door molding.
So far it is still too early for me to tell but I am satisfied with my kit for the past month.
I did not have the time to read the previous comments so forgive me if I repeat. Here is my quick and dirty take on it. I only use ST for security. It has its benefits. Easy and quick setup, no wires. inexpensive. It has it draw backs. It works in the cloud. Internet down, Security down. The new apps suck. I went back to old android apps and will not update for now. Apple apps even worse. Support +/_ … not great but there is some effort. the Forum is great. Plenty of people willing to help and they are dedicated to make this sytem work. For me i only use motion and smoke sensors connected to a siren. The sensors are a 7 ot of 10. They are not ST but eco link z waves. So I know there are better systems to install but I have a reasonable amount of confidence, but I certainly expected better of this hub and system when I purchased and Samsung has not made me feel more confident as the days go by. Can’t tell you what to do except more research!
Thats right. When you allow and sell security devices like door/window sensors and motion sensors you must be endorsing the system as a security system. What is jcchagnon smoking?
Yes thats right. Inability to control sirens and other devices when triggered and the internet is down is a sham and pure BS. I live in the Republic of Panama and while we have great radio internet even out in the sticks, while our internet is down, we are F(*&&^^cked. SAMSUNG listen…LOCAL PROCESSING. Take the cloud out of our homes. I cannot even imagine how that little white box that cost $100 cannot handle my home ST network. My phone can do it and much more.