A very frustrating issue for me is the Lack of Camera Support for this hub. Only supporting Nest, D-Link, and a single Samsung model is pretty ridiculous. I am wondering how much Smart Things/Samsung has vested in this relationship with D-Link and nest, and why they refuse to open up capabilities to developers to allow other integrations. It seems to me Smart Things has gone the corporate route and decided to protect contracts with other corporations instead of truly having an open platform that developers can mold into a great system.
It seems to me that if they open access to developers they most likely will violate contracts with Nest and D-Link, and that is more important to their pockets than having a fully capable hub.
If you read through PStuartâs posts in other threads, youâll see he had many problems with the lack of documentation and with the incompleteness and inaccuracy of what little is there. It just doesnât work well.
I donât agree with Ryan though that theyâre protecting their own investment; I think instead theyâre overwhelmed and a bit incompetent. Plus Ryan wants âfully openâ, by which he presumably means âopen sourceâ, which isnât really necessary if only Samsung/SmartThings would fix the current APIs and document stuff better.
Some examples:
Why can I see a HubAction sending data, and see data being returned (watched via packetsniffer), but Parse() is not called?
How does one point Tiles at more representative icons?
Why canât Actions support parameters? Itâs beyond stupid that a typical device command (i.e. deviceNofitication.Notify or speechSynthesis.Speak) take a parameter, but that you cannot pass it one from the Action of a standardTileâŚ
Only supported Capability Attributes are supported; when will they allow extension of events to support more?
If youâre writing a real custom Device Driver (as LANdroid is), your SmartApp still is constrained to looking for legacy device types⌠which means having to choose a non-representative type and risk the SmartApp being connected to an insufficient device. Why?
Why isnât cloud storage or local storage documented at all at this point?
Too much of the effort in supporting SmartThings is in trying to get capabilities tied to methods or data back from calls or to determine the magical incantation to get something to work.
But, on the other hand, this little hub only cost $99 and does a lot for that. I can be a bit frustrated and still, over all, consider it fun and a decent value. Ryan, itâs not like there are competitive better values. (Says the author of a popular plug-in for HomeSeer years ago. )
Are we talking about Smartthings here? Maybe you know something that wasnât made public, yet. But last time I checked there was support for only D-link and single Samsung camâŚ
You do realise this functionality is completely beta right now and not completely official⌠Itâs like judging the performance of the USB ports on the hub when they are not even enabled yetâŚ
Beta for anyone, anyone can use the video function on the V2 hub right now, but since itâs only beta and not officially released yet, there are only a handful of cameras right now, Iâm sure they are working on more.
Regardless, itâs a feature thatâs not official yet so we canât have any expectations of it.
In response to Patrick Stuartâs Generic Camera Device, âCaptain I believe you have earned a promotion and will henceforth be known as âMajor Scruffyââ
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