Refrigerator Family Hub vs Aeotec Hub for Samsung Microwave Integration?

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In the past, I’ve used smartthings to do very basic stuff - control a couple of plugs in the garden and a light bulb or two in the house, nothing much at all.

About 3 weeks ago, I got a family hub fridge (and I love the fridge and especially the tablet and what it does/should do).

About a week ago I got the fancy microwave from Samsung as well, and honestly, even without smartthings integrations, the microwave stands on it’s own - convection cooking, air frying, etc - great appliance.

So - I’m pretty excited with getting everything all wrapped up together and I am set to jump into controlling everything I can think of, smart 'wise.

First question I have - a real hub (Aeotec will be delivered today), I suspect will give me a better experience than trying to use the so called smartthings hub that the fridge supplies? I’ve already discovered, that while the fridge hub claims to be Z-wave compatible, it does not in fact have that ability… also, features on the ring doorbell (2nd gen) also quit working after 3 or 4 days.

The microwave, while seen by the fridge’s hub, you can’t do anything with the connection - constantly says it needs to download an add-on, and it immediately fails everytime.

With the new hub coming today, I am pondering if I should just delete everything from the fridge and “turn off” the smart hub on it, and reload everything to the Aeotec hub? I think overall, I will get better performance that way?

Also, wondering if anyone here has a family hub fridge and a smart microwave? Am I missing something on what the available integration should be between the two? I expect the fridge to be able to at least show me details of what the microwave is doing as well as be able to start and stop the microwave from the fridge.

Fridge - RF32CG5900SRAA
Microwave - MC17T8000CS

I have contacted Samsung support several times already (Ring features, micro/fridge integration, Google calendar issues) and as you probably know, their help was not very promising (power cycle, reset, remove network and add back, etc, followed with a “I’ll escalate this to the support team so they can investigate”).

I guess, I was expecting the experience to run a little smoother on everything "Smart"things…

Les

Edit: maybe I should add, while I am now retired, I was a networking professional for over 25 years, desktop integrations, network engineer, etc… all this kind of stuff is not foreign to me. On one hand, I understand the complexity of this stuff, but on the other hand, I think it should work a little better…

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Whew! That’s a lot to unpack.

First, congrats on getting the Aeotec hub. You’ll have a much better ST’s experience than with just the app or the appliances. The Aeotec hub has all of the radios: WiFi, ZigBee, ZWave and Thread. So, you’re pretty much covered with anything you want to add to your smart home.

Once, you get the hub, onboard your appliances. The app on your phone will work with your hub and will be able to download the plugins for your appliances. I don’t have the fridge… yet, but I do have the same microwave and a dishwasher that work with ST’s.

Not sure where you saw that the fridge supported ZWave, all of the appliances I have are WiFi, since the fridge can be used as a hub - maybe it supports ZigBee, but I doubt ZWave. I use Ring devices connected directly to my hub (they are ZWave), but I think there’s a way to link Ring to ST’s, but I don’t use their base station, I use the built in ST’s plugins under the “Life” section in the app to control my security system and locks.

Good luck with your new hub, if the bug gets you like it did me 5 years ago, you’ll be automating everything in your house. Lights, switches, window shades, etc. Enjoy your journey.

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Samsung has offered different dongles at different times over the years, which can lead to some confusion if you find an outdated article.

But as of this posting, the family hub refrigerator with the add-on dongle can support Wi-Fi, Zigbee, and thread. No Z wave, and Samsung has said they do not expect to support zwave for the refrigerators and smart televisions moving forward. It also supports Bluetooth, but only for commissioning, not to add Bluetooth lights or other home automation devices.

Also, as many customers have found over the years, pay close attention to this

Content services may vary by region and are subject to change without notifications.

Features from how the shopping list works to how camera images are displayed have been changed or discontinued from time to time. :man_shrugging:t2:

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The fridge will support Wi-Fi and Matter over Wi-Fi out of the box. The dongle adds the radio to support Zigbee and Thread as well as Matter over Thread. I have Zigbee, Matter over Wi-Fi, and Matter over Thread devices currently connected to my 2018 fridge. I haven’t tested, but it should presumably support Matter over Bridge devices as well. It also finds my Sonos (Edge LAN) devices if I do a Scan Nearby.

My fridge ST hub just got updated to 52.11 which makes it nearly the same version as the v2/v3/Aeotec hubs and way ahead of the ST Wi-Fi hubs.

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Well, setting up the new hub was simple as could be.

Ring camera now works as advertised.

Microwave still wants to download an add-on, and it is still failing to do so.

I deleted all my devices from the family hub and started fresh with the Aeotec. It really seemed like it went a lot smoother than it did previously on the family hub.

Otherwise, pretty much an identical experience with everything.

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