Samsung Connect Home in Australia (smartthing hub function not working)

Devices & Integrations Connected Things
1

Hi all,

Was very excited with the Connect Home announcement, thought I can solve two problems (wifi and Home automation at once)

Bought the Samsung Connect Home (imported from US), set up yesterday. And very surprised to find out that can’t find the option for the Smartthing hub. Asked the question to webchat, and was told that it is because smartthing hub not available in Australia.

Very annoyed because it means that have just bought very expensive mesh wifi system.

Anyone knows anyway to get around it to enable the smartthing hub function? use VPN?

3

Have you been able to download the SmartThings App itself (perhaps by finding an APK if it is not in Play store…)?

What happens when you try to “claim” the Hub after creating an account in the SmartThings App?

Besides being in Australia, there are known conflicts between using a Samsung Account vs a SmartThings Account. To focus on getting the SmartThings Hub portion working, I would personally concentrate on using the SmartThings App and creating a login / Account in it first, etc. …

But I am not familiar enough with the Samsung Connect Home to know what specific problem you are encountering or what solution is best…

4

With samsung connect home…supposed to use samsung connect app. And in the samsung connect app supposed to be option of switching on the smartthings hub, but in my samsung connect app…no option like that available.

If i use smartthings hub…the samsung connect home does not come witg tge welcome code like smartthing hub does…so cant get it connected through smartthing hub.

That is why i am thinking there is either different samsung connect app for us here in australia…as the hardware itself is from the US…

Screenshot_20170928-204200
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5

There are definitely differences and/or location detection. Since the Hub has Z-Wave, Samsung is legally forbidden to let it run in countries of the wrong frequency.

But, I would attempt

  1. Reset everything.
  2. Disable location services on your phone.
  3. If possible, get the Samsung Connect App from a USA source.
  4. Regardless; create a new Account and say your location is USA. Indeed, you may end up having to use a VPN if the setup process uses IP GeoLocation even though you disabled location services on your phone.
  5. See if SmartThings Hub enable option is provided.
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supposed to have this as belowUS_ANS_MOB_SCH_2017-Samsung-Connect-Smart-Things-Hub-3

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let’s try…thanks

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Just an update…it worked…changed my Samsung account to USA…and presto…it worked

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How did you change your account to USA?

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Used my gmail address + VPN from USA and log in with that new account

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11

Great advice from Terry as always.

Also remember that the US and UK versions run on different frequencies. All this really means for you is that when you buy z-wave and zigbee devices you MUST get them from the US sources. If you get the UK ones, they will not connect.

Im from South Africa and I had a few of those issues myself.

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@Peter ther0ck24 could you go into more detail please
I tried using a VPN, but still could not get it to work, my process was,

VPN to phone download US based app, and register at US.Samsung.com

routers connected to local internet

Reset to factory using pin held for 8+ seconds

then set up new network via the VPN connected smartphone

result, I was not prompted with option of smart things hub.

Please can you explain your steps in detail

Thanks

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13

Do you know if the Samsung connect Home is also illegal in Australia as is the case with the Smart Hub? I have several sensors coming from the States to use with a US platform and they are meant to work with the Smart Hub. I thought by buying the new Connect Home I could bypass this issue. I would appreciate any help or advice.

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did you confirm with where’s my ip? I would start there. If you have your “lowest point” of web access on vpn, you should be good.

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If the Hub uses non-Australia permitted Z-Wave frequency, then it would be illegal to operate.

I don’t there are variable frequency Z-Wave chipsets (?) at this time; so this means custom hardware for each Z-Wave Region. Regardless, all RF devices need national certification in most countries to be legally operated.

16

Thanks for the information. Do you happen to know when or if Samsung are planning to release the Connect Home in Australia?

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I wish! I know SmartThings wants to go as international as Samsung; but who is next? Europe vs Asia-Pacific vs ?

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Thanks for the input. I appreciate it.

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I’m also in Australia, and a new Smartthings users.

Not sure about the Connect, but the hub has the option to disable Z-Wave, I did this via the tools on the Samsung IDE.

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20

I’ve been reading a lot into SmartThings and Connect Home as I find it all interesting.

I noticed in a post above it mentioned ZigBee to only get from US or UK (Depending on the Hub). Note that ZigBee is internationally on the same frequency so your ZigBee devices, that are SmartThings approved, will work on any hub.

The Z-Wave is the big issue. In Australia we use two Z-Wave frequencies. 921.4MHz and 919.8MHz. It is ILLEGAL to use any Z-Wave device that uses frequencies other than those in Australia.

Take the American and UK frequencies as an example. The UK (EU Countries) Use 868.4, 868.42 and 869.85. These are very close to the Telstra 3G frequency of 850MHz and as such could potentially interfere with Mobile Networks and as such are illegal to use in Australia.
The US use 908.4, 908.42 and 916MHz. The lower end of that is very close to the Optus Mobile frequency of 900MHz and as such could interfere with Mobile communications and are illegal to use in Australia.

That is aside to any other devices, such as RADAR, that may operate in the bands, which the devices would have no knowledge of.

This is why the Samsung Connect Home will not activate in Australia without pretending to be in the USA.

If you disable the Z-Wave, then you are legal again. There are a stack of Zigbee and WiFi devices that work with SmartThings and Connect.

It is a pity they do not release an Australian version as there is a very strong community of Home Automation enthusiasts here and the Hue lights have really taken off.

If anyone from SmartThings reads this, maybe they can give us an idea when an official Australian launch may take place.
Note: Australian Launch could also include New Zealand, Malaysia, Hong Kong and a few other places that use the same frequencies.

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21

I’m not “from SmartThings”, but I can share my impression (based on Samsung Developer Conference) that Samsung absolutely intends to take SmartThings global :globe_with_meridians:… well, at least to everyplace that is a Samsung market.

But the timeline isn’t specified. There’s bits of evidence of “globalization” going on, such as language translation efforts. And the expansion of the concept of the Hub into other products like ADT Panel, NVIDIA Shield, etc., already makes it easier to offer multiple Z-Wave SKUs.

Samsung is playing this as a long-term “no rush” strategy. Even in North America, there’s barely any marketing and retail push. I seriously doubt that sales are growing at any significant rate. One major inflection point can occur once the SmartThings Classic App is deprecated (followed by the deprecation of the “Groovy API”).