Has it not occurred to anyone that perhaps SmartThings is not saying anything in a public forum on the advice of their legal team? I have no inside knowledge but it would seem to me that it’s possible that if this has been acknowledged at SmartThings that the last thing they would do is make comments in here.
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People with the problems could use this if you are in the EU
https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/main/index.cfm?event=main.home.show&lng=EN
A member of the SmartThings Team has posted on this thread, so they are aware of the problem.
I believe that was @Nezmo’s point. If they know about this issue that may have legal ramifications for them, it’s quite reasonable to assume that a lawyer has told them to keep their mouths shut.
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You will never get an acknowledgement of guilt until confirmed. you will only ever get that they are looking at it at most. the minute they admit there might be a problem they are open to all manor of legals.
This is standard for ANY fault on an item. they will want to be sure it really is there issue before they have to issue a recall.
I don’t blame ST’s on this.
You could always remove some of the sleeve on the pin if it is painted. if not you could make a simple spacer for your own peace of mind in the meantime.
Don’t do any of this ^
If you have a insurance claim, the insurance adjuster\fireman that comes round your place to check will spot it in a heart beat.
My ST plug has also started not working. Ive hardly used it but when I plug in a device now I can hear sparking inside the device, and for some devices I dont get anything at all (the device might aswell not be plugged into the ST plug).
Have sent an email to ST and will see what they say.
Yup, the smartthings power outlets are rubbish. Hardly used mine, after a few months I decided to dig it out and plug in a mains light to work with a motion detector (xmas lights).
Q all the problems mentioned above. It’s really hard to plug anything into it, and it only works if you wiggle it. Contacted smartthings support and got told (essentially) ‘tough’ because I didn’t buy it from curries or argos or whatever is on their approved supplier list.
And as someone said above, it’s impossible to find these for sale.
I did communicate this to tech support and was told “you can buy it from curries for £26”. I reiterated that you couldn’t, it’s not in stock anywhere. The reply came back saying “sorry, it was when I checked”. No it wasn’t, because I’d obviously checked before sending the email.
The helpful advice which followed was 'try asking the smartthings community".
Same old bollocks from a big company - provide no support and leave it to a public forum to help each other out. Pathetic.
So it took almost a week for support to get back to me with regards to my broken outlet. They said that it probably failed because it was overloaded. The bizarre thing is they didn’t seem alarmed by the fact it had fused to the plug and that I had to use a screwdriver to pry it off! I’m no maths genius but I’m pretty sure that a 1500w heater is well within the limits, I think the bigger issue here is the design flaw of the product. I’ve been told they’ll send out a replacement but I have to admit I don’t feel comfortable using them at all now. Has anyone used the Heiman plug? Is it straightforward to pair with Smarthings? Like nebno6 said, I think they should be reimbursing us for a product that isn’t fit for purpose.
My Heiman socket arrived yesterday and paired up within about ten seconds with no issues, and is controlling my Xmas tree lights fine through the app and Alexa. It looks and feels like a good product; time will time of course.
Oh great, thanks for that. Does the contact on the new plug seem ok too?
It does, the pins for the Xmas tree lights are shielded but they aren’t a problem for the Heiman socket, no crackling or humming noises, and no excess heat being generated as far as I can tell. Pins themselves all at good depth and live and neutral covered as required.
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And thanks to @nebno6 for the Heiman recommendation. I’m just using my SmartThings Outlet currently as a zigbee repeater with nothing plugged in to it.
excellent stuff. where did you find yours? amazon shows as ‘may arrive after xmas’.
thanks!
I found it on eBay, received within two days so would recommend.
Magic, thanks for that, much appreciated
Thanks dude. I’m going to try these as well.
As an alternative for a UK plug that will also work as a zigbee repeater, has anyone tried the hive plug model that Amazon has certified to work with “simple setup” with their new echo plus? The echo plus uses the same zigbee profile that SmartThings does, ZHA 1.2 , so it should work at least for basic on/off, I just don’t know if it’s intended as a repeater. Most mains powered devices are, but there are a few exceptions.
I know this is expensive compared to some of the Z wave pocket sockets, but we do get a lot of questions in the forum from people looking for zigbee repeaters for the UK.
BTW, in the US, the SmartThings pocket socket is also certified as working with the echo plus. But not in the UK, so I too have been wondering if the U.K. model has been withdrawn.
I bought the last power outlet from mobilefun last week, after that it went to discontinued on their site: https://www.mobilefun.co.uk/samsung-smartthings-power-outlet-56493
I’m wondering if thats it for this model, instead of acknowledging the problem officially, Samsung quietly discontinue the product in the UK. Maybe a new model is due?
Stock is virtually zero everywhere now, I’m using it as a repeater only, but I would like to start controlling some lamps, however after reading this thread it sounds like powering anything from these sockets is a big risk.
Keen to hear about zigbee alternatives, compatible with smartthings and act as repeaters.
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Thank you, I’ve just ordered two myself :-). Now, time to work out what to do with these spare Samsung ones…