I’ve found this to be the case too. If she tells me something’s not right, I’m finding that it is an “edge case” I hadn’t considered, not another platform outage.
With that being said, I’m still here monitoring the forums waiting to see what ST eventually ends up morphing into. I’m not against running more than one hub as I have 3 different ones right now.
Hey, I started with SmartThings back in 2014, and over 6 years later I’m still running it: but now in a “hub optional” configuration with no hub at all. 
There are some devices I want to use, particularly Switchbot, which don’t have a homekit Integration, and some where I want to use more complex logic than is easily available through my other platforms. I don’t put anything on it where reliability is critical, but it’s still useful to me. 
I feel like I dropped this thread and then disappeared into the night, been busy all weekend.
Anyway, I just wanted to say, I WISH I was one of those people who could go out and buy smart appliances and they work without any special code and it just plain works. Even if that is samsung’s target audience, I believe they’re failing.
I HATE having to selectively shop for things that work with ST. I HATE buying an expensive item bringing it home and realizing I have to spend 45 minutes fiddling with it, downloading a 3rd party app, registering into THAT ecosystem, remembering a new username and password, going to ST, linking the 2 apps together and praying to God the fragile link and business relationship between these 2 companies doesn’t crumble or go obsolete. I HATE having to search for custom handlers.
I just bought 3 Aeotec Smart Switch 7’s on ebay for a specific project. They are Z-wave, which means they should work flawlessly. Well…sorta. In the end, they worked out fine, but Fk did they take forever to set up. I found them in the ST app, followed the pairing sequence, and scanned the QR code. Each one took a solid 10-15 minutes of hourglass, only to return a security error, ignore the error, find that they are not talking to each other, and then 30 minutes later, return to ST to find they suddenly work fine (now I can rename and create automations).
I mean, great, it works, but for something so simple, it took me about an hour to set up.
My Honeywell 9000 thermostat is the new issue. I have to say, I love the interface of this thermostat, even tells me the weather. But what once was supported is no longer part of the ST universe. I installed it back in the classic app a few years ago. Worked great, and lots of functionality, straight from the ST interface. I recently noticed reduced functionality, so I unpaired it…big mistake. It can no longer be re-integrated with ST. Now, I’m playing with the idea of dropping another several hundred bucks on a new smart thermostat, just to replace a perfectly fine working thermostat that I really like, just because my hub no longer wants to play nice.
This is another reason I’m sticking with z-wave. If it is a Wi-Fi controlled device, it’s bad news.
Different things will work for different people. I have quite a few Wi-Fi devices now, some thing I never would’ve expected several years ago, but they are almost all ones that work with homekit. Some, like the Meross, also work with smartthings.
For example, I just put up a project report this week about the meross RGBW table lamp, which we use for notifications. It’s a very simple and elegant solution at relatively low cost for things like an “on air“ notification for zoom meetings.
Meross RGBW Table Light for Notifications
I agree the smartthings platform requirement for custom code for certified zwave Devices is very frustrating for both customers and device manufacturers. 
I’ll give the 9000 another go, but I seem to be spinning my wheels.
The 9000 worked amazingly in the classic app, seemed to get limited in the new app, then suddenly, I noticed I had almost no control at all.
I tried to uninstall/reinstall the thermostat to ST, but in doing so, it led me down a rabbit hole. I spent 20 minutes trying to login to Honeywell Home and password guessing, only to find out I didn’t have a HH account linked to any of my email address (wait, what?). So I downloaded the HH app, created a new account, realized I had to link the HH account to an older Honeywell TCC account that my thermostat was apparently on, buried deep in the interwebs, yup, that’s where my thermostat belongs, deep on some cob-webbed server in Africa, as far as I know.
Got the 2 accounts linked. FINALLY, I can control my thermostat from my phone. So I head to the ST app, select Honeywell Home, login, agree to Terms and Conditions. I’m told I have 0 compatible devices… So dead end. I can’t connect. Add to the fact, I’m now having Wi-Fi problems I never had before.
So even if I do get my thermostat to work, I have to rely on my WiFi and internet to be up, the thermostat sends a signal to TCC, which passes information to HH, which passes information to St, which passes information to Alexa, all of which requires their own security gate of login credentials, at any point I’m expecting security against an outside attacker. Meanwhile, when I tell Alexa to set my thermostat, that command has to work its way back up the chain.
Seriously, can anyone here legitimately remind me WHO the target audience is, here? You practically need a Master’s Degree just to get this fukin thing online. Data has to make 5 trips around the world, just because it’s a little warm in my living room.
There are 2 honeywell integrations in Smartthings… The honeywell home is not the correct integration for the 9000. You’ll have to choose the honeywell total connect comfort option in ST… This is where you will find your thermostats.
There are local options for thermostats. In the US, 2gig makes some zwave ones, Zen makes a Zigbee model. I don’t know whether they are local with smartthings or not, though. Ecobee is local with HomeKit, cloud to cloud with SmartThings.
I would read some reviews of those Samsung appliances and their “smart” interfaces. The work without any special code and it just plain works, is a bit steep, especially the just plain works part.
I’ve seen so many frustrated comments about people unable to get them connected to their wifi, and always this fancy solution to turn off the 5 Ghz network… If you have to do that with any equipment, then the producer has failed delivering a user friendly product. Oh, and the 5 minutes setup videos on Youtube… Hahaha… The same as you sad, hours of frustration, random error messages, etc…
One of the last reviews what I read about a Samsung washer was that, the guy was unable to connect it to the WiFi, even the mesh node was in the same room. A Samsung rep came out and tried to pair it as well,and at the end told the guy to send it back and buy another brand. (I cannot remember where I read, here or on reddit, but was a funny story… 
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@troy_owens
Thank you. I didn’t notice there was a 3rd honeywell option. I just need to get my WiFi back online.
Hi, FYI, Ecobee is never local… All the ecobee APIs are in the cloud…
This is not true… Ecobee HomeKit is indeed local.
Hi, I’m not talking about authentication which is indeed local because of the homekit chip inside the ecobee.
I’m talking about the commands that need to be sent to the ecobee APIs in the cloud.
You can test it very quickly by disconnecting your tstat and using homekit to send commands… You’ll see that ecobee needs to be connected to the cloud to process the commands (by the mothership)…
Regards
I have actually tested it, and did again just now to be sure. I have disconnected my cable modem, and I can still control my Ecobee 3 thermostats via my iPhone’s HomeKit “Home” app without any problem. It just works.
If its of any consolation, the LG appliance ThingQ is not better. I was very disappointed about how hard it was to set up and how little it delivers. Their IFTT integration doesn’t work, the wifi integration with a code varies by appliance, you can’t remove a “bad” setup, no ST integrations (somewhat understood via brand retention), and even worse to re configure the wifi after I updated my router. I did figure out how to get it too work, but not the straightforward way. ThinQ functionality for the fridge is near zero, but annoying. Washer and dryer generated completed notifications, but hard to turn them on remotely. Even for the industry leaders, there is long way to go until their integrations are functional for the mass market…
Hi, it will probably work for about an hour and then you’ll lose your Auth tokens from ecobee… The renewal of the auth Tokens needs to talk to the cloud, that’s what I understand from the homekit integration (I don’t have it anymore).
It’s not local APIs per se. You cannot change mode or comfort settings without the cloud.
I think I will have at least 3 platforms, and that will eventually include Hubitat, unless the Smartthings team just blows me away with the anticipated changes. Adding a Smart Life hub seems inevitable, as I’ve been really impressed with the app alongside several IR remotes controlling a 5 zone LG mini split - a solution with a total investment of $40 vs $500 for LG’s official solution.
I understand what you are saying about the wife being the decider. You can have as many hubs as you want, but the “hubby” might be the one not communicating well and helping things run smoothly…
One major reason I will keep Smartthings around is, otherwise I wouldn’t know what to do with my 30+ Ecosmart remotes 
We ran our HomeKit devices for several days when there was a regional internet/power outage. (We have solar power, so we still had electricity and local Wi-Fi.) That included the HomeKit app.
Anything we could do through the homekit app, including Automations created in that app, still ran. We could definitely change the mode.
Our time schedules created with HomeKit also continued to run.
The ecobee app did not work during this time.
So you don’t get full functionality, but it’s more than just a dumb thermostat when running locally with HomeKit. 
@JDRoberts, sorry to bring this up again. Here is another example, Samsung product, Fancy, New SmartThings feature, and what, it is not working…
Who is the target then, when SmartThings/Samsung cannot even get their own products working?
Obviously I don’t know, but Samsung has a long history of introducing features with a big flourish at media events that then almost none of their actual customers use. So the fact that they’re broken doesn’t affect sales in any perceptible way.
Bixby is a great example.
There is the sense that Bixby is maintained rather than developed by Samsung. Since launch we’ve seen the removal of Bixby buttons, the non-appearance of the expected Galaxy Home Bixby speaker and some functions removed from Bixby - like the Uber support.
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More recently with the launch of the Galaxy S21 family, Samsung appeared to be moving closer to Google, offering Google Discover on the home screen for example, suggesting that it might be winding down some of its services in the future.
You folks are still coming up with examples of features that don’t work.
My point is that Samsung seems to assume most customers won’t even try to use those features, so they don’t care whether it works or not. The features can be advertised in a way that makes the product exciting pre-sale, but they don’t affect the longterm customer relationship for most people. Again, Bixby.
Just my observation, I could certainly be wrong.
I know what you mean…
