Hurry up and return your Smartthings hub before they decide to block you from converting it into a Wink V1 Hub. Wait a minute. They are doing that on their own… #fixthelag
Exploding phones that melt in your mouth, hands, and pockets. Washing machines that decapitate themselves. Watches that no longer charge after a couple months because of flawed design. ‘Smart’ tvs and appliances that don’t connect. Phones sold with a promise of Imminent OS upgrade, but that upgrade never materializes in three years. SmartThings hubs that promise future BT functionality but never deliver. New GAlaxy phones that ship with voice-activated assistant that, oops, is unable to voice activate yet. And when you try to get some help from them on many of these things, the company literally hangs up on you. Now add on that when you find a reason to want one of their products, they say “No we won’t allow you to use it that way” and close off that functionality.
It is my prayer that Samsung sells off SmartThings to a company that gives a damn about customer service.
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I must say this thread has confused me somewhat.
If you are continually getting appalling service from a company and continually being let down by them not honouring their promises, why would you sign up for a pre-release product that is subject to change, blowing up in your pocket, whilst charging etc.
Just wondering.
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Wouldn’t be as fun to enjoy the new gadgets if it wasn’t for crying out loud about limitations. Without complaining there is no evolution! 
I’ve complained about Apple for a decade and they rarely evolve, just copy software and hardware features Android has had for years then proceed to call themselves magical and revolutionaries. Not so sure about that statement.
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Wonder no more. I did not sign up for anything. I simply saw the news item, and decided this would be a good moment to exhort my fellow ST enthusiasts to NOT sign up for what is certain (based on the available evidence) to be a lousy customer experience. Don’t sign up for the pre-release, and more than that definitely don’t hand your $800 over to them.
My own history with Samsung is an Exhibit 2 phone some years back that when purchased, they promised the OS/firmware would be upgraded within a few months. That never happened, and so the stuff I bought it to do could ultimately not be done (I use these gadgets as everything but a phone lol). And when I kept demanding they do as promised, they eventually hung up on me.
The second item was SmartThings. Again, a promised functionality not delivered in Bluetooth.
Third strike, Samsung is out: wife wanted a smart watch for Xmas 2015. I got her the Samsung, as it seemed very capable and it was the one she wanted. Within days of the expiration of the warranty, the charger stopped clicking in to the watch so it would not charge. Got a replacement charger… turns out the issue is the retaining mechanism in the watch itself, not the plastic tabs on the charger. So now, absent a MacGuyver ‘solution’ that drives the wife nuts because it no longer naturally aligns itself, the thing does not charge. Again I contacted Samsung to ask them to make good on what was obviously a significant design flaw (go check the web, this is an issue to most owners of this watch)… and again, the prvks hung up on me. Right after that is when news of the exploding/melting phones and shrapnel-generating washers hit the news, with Samsung originally being very reluctant to assist those customers too.
So now? Now I recommend people refuse to buy their products. Bad designs, bad implementations, bad service… it hits us right here on ST where, rather than make an effort to support the current product properly (not a knock at the ST team, but at the parent company), they instead are working on yet another new product to grab our money. I’m tired of it, so when news of them preventing folks from re-mapping the button hit I saw yet one more instance where they are just looking to hook you and grab your money while refusing to give you decent service.
So I’m denouncing them with gusto. They deserve it.
They might not deserve your money, but they get mine every time. One thing though buy Samsung for what features already has not for promises. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Just remember, have what you need and need what you have!
oh and I have a cheap fix for your wife’s watch…she only charges it once a day…so clamp it!
Actually, the road to hell is paved with glazed brick. I’ve seen it.
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Quite true.
This issue is not limited to Samsung, but is endemic in the industry. Vice Presidents are measured on ability to ship product, regardless if it works. Their mantra is, “Ship it and fix it later, when/if the customer discovers the flaws!”
Prior to my retirement a year ago, I was adding a feature to a product. There was another, similar, variation that was on the product roadmap. I pressed to do both features at the same time. The code was almost identical – it required only configuration/setup additions and minor support code. My estimate was (literally) about an hour of my time!
Management answer, “No! We don’t have time for that now! Ship it the way it is!!!”
Fast-forward a few months into my retirement. They call me. “We hired a guy to take over this product. Can you teach him how to add (the additional feature)?” Now understand, I’d given them five months notice of my impending retirement and a clear roadmap to hiring & training my replacement. Think they followed any of my suggestions? No!
But, the VP met his quarterly quota of shipments 
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Is this Bill Gates?
I hope you gave your consulting terms and made $150k like you could have for that kind of engagement! 
Haha! You read my mind. I have one figure in mind for when they want me to do the actual work. Another, higher amount, for “training” – why shoot the goose that lays the golden egg? 
So far, I’ve declined their request. However, this spring they want me again…
This is the kind of position us engineers drool about being in someday. Kudos for being persistent! Just don’t holdout too long… They’ll eventually find a green college intern to pay peanuts for a couple months this summer to do something that resembles what they want and call it a day. 
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Nah…it’s just blacktop like everywhere else…
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That picture was taken about 6 miles from my home. No joke.
So…Purgatory then?
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Do you mind sharing why it’s making you ready to pull your eyebrows out? I have used both Android & iOS and don’t find anything reaches the “pulling your eyebrows out” level. Maybe if you are rooting and doing something specific that can’t be done…
So the OP is obviously entitled to his opinion re: Samsung and their shitty customer support/exploding devices etc.
But just so we’re clear, nobody paid $800 for the new S8 only to find that a feature they paid for was subsequently taken away. The only people who “lost” the ability to reassign the function of the bixby button were developers or tech journalists who specifically signed up for a pre-release device with all the caveats that entails. Right?
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Worse. Pinckney, MI
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Yes I would be delighted to tell you. A quick history, I used the original iPhone for 3 generations before I jumped to Android w the Galaxy 3 (or something like that). Been on every Galaxy phone since then though the Galaxy 7 Edge. Then in Nov, I switched to the iPhone because all of my work people use iPhone and they gave me a new MBP, a few months down the line when the new models shipped.
I don’t like that I can’t customize anything. With android, I can change the entire interface to something different. I HATE that there is no back button. I find it annoying to be deep on a web page, have to scroll back up to get to the back button in the app. I don’t like that I can’t quickly get to the camera from a locked screen. I HATE only have 1 lightening connector and no separate headphone jack. My really good headphone use a 3.5MM jack so now I also have to carry a dongle that I tend to lose about every 2 months. I think the interface is terrible, dated and not interesting. I hate not having an external SD card. Syncing music through iTunes has become way too complicated and clumsy.
I think people that have only used iPhone tend to have no probs and love their phones. But for me personally, I cannot stand this phone. April 21st can’t get here soon enough. Don’t get me started on the new MacBooks either. It’s so bad that I use my personal Surface Pro4 98% of the time for work and my new top of the line Mac just sits on the table no even turned on.
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