Hi I heard that smartthings will be made available in Australia earlier this year, but since then I haven’t heard anything and some people in other forums have said that this will not be made available in Australia.
Has anyone purchased a UK or US smartthings and used it in Australia, are there any gotchas that someone looking to do this will need to keep in mind. And, any devices that you are using that you can suggest (light switches and poweroutlets ?)?
You can get a UK or USA one and use it in Australia.
What you should know is that the zwave frequencies are different in both countries and the hubs will only cater for one.
So if in Australia you use the UK zwave frequency, this is the one you should get.
The zigbee frequency is the same worldwide I believe.
Hope this helps.
There were some hubs sent to Australian backers of the original SmartThings kickstarter campaign, but to be honest I don’t know what frequency they were on.
Currently the hub is only manufactured in the US model and a UK model. The frequency cannot be changed after manufacture.
And as mentioned by @anon36505037 , it is indeed a criminal offense in both Australia and New Zealand to use frequencies that are used by either the UK or the US hub. They can interfere with local mobile communications.
That’s why the Australian frequency is set higher.
After reading more about this, and only having access to Zigbee (which seems to have poor support in terms of products), I’ve decided to create my own hub using Rasberry Pi 3, Zigbee and Z-wave controllers. Wish me luck, I’ve just ordered the parts.
Thanks everyone, pretty disappointed that the smartthings rollout in Australia hasn’t happened as mentioned in the papers earlier this year.
I’m in Australia and I bought a ST hub from Amazon (shipped it via Australia Post) and I can confirm it’s working. I have Philips hue lights, wemo switches, Netgear Arlo and Samsung Multiroom speakers all connected. All these “things” were purchased locally.
I got smartthings on online chat last week, and asked if there are any plans for an AU release. I was told that they dont divulge product release schedules… I said fine, there is massive demand here in Australia so please feed that back to the product team…
Just wish they could tell us either way…
Hi @Marten, so happy to see your post as I have been waiting and waiting for Smartthings to come to Australia and I also have a bunch of Wemo Gear, Dlink Camera, and Samsung M5, M7 and Soundbar multiroom speakers that I want to set up and was wondered on compatibility. Was it hard to get the wemo and speakers to work with your hub or straight forward? What can you speakers do - eg can they send voice notifications?
Hey @moonlight good to hear from another ST fan in Australia! It’s all fairly simple to get working here in Aus. I bought mine from Amazon US and used the post forward services of Australian Post (ShopMate) all up it cost me an extra $36 AUD to get it here. The process was easy and simple and if you don’t want to wait for it to be released here in Australia I recommend buying it that way.
As for compatibility I’ve had success with getting my Samsung M3, M5 and Wireless soundbars connected. I do have 1 x M3 that won’t show up in the app but I think that’s more to do with a local networking issue. The wemo gear is hit and miss for me, I have a standard and an insight switch. Both seem to connect and work initially with ST but after a day or 2 they drop off. I haven’t really looked into fixing this yet so not sure why this is happening. The Philips Hue and Netgear Arlo work seamlessly.
If you do end up getting one I recommend you disable the Z-Wave functionality by logging into this site https://graph-na02-useast1.api.smartthings.com/ from what ive read the Z-wave frequency that the US hubs uses is the same as Vodafone AU’s 3g network.
Sing out if you have any question, more than happy to provide some advice.
Hi Marten. I’ve just bought a smart thing hub and waiting for it to arrive. However being in Australia too can I ask his you managed to register the device as it seems to want to send an SMS in UK, USA Canada or Ireland…could you provide some help?
Thanks in advance
Lunchplease
Hi. The version i bought was from the US. I followed the standard registration process and it worked perfectly. Initially i setup the option to sms’s me when an alert happens and i received the text message alert from some US number so i can confirm that function works as well.
Hi @Marten thankyou for that. I jumped the gun a bit as thought it was an SMS code but its only one on back of box(when I get it!). Ive got 1 x M3, 2 x M5’s plus harmony hub and Google Home to connect. V excited though my wife is ready to throttle me already! Should be fun!
Just need some advice on lightbulbs…does anyone know how the Xiaomi yeelights(E27) work with smartthings? They seem so cheap in comparison to others so was thinking of going with these if they are compatible?
I’m about to purchase a Smartthings hub myself from www.bhphotovideo.com (ships direct to Aus without using a postal redirecting service) to go along with a Google Home, Amazon Echo DOT, 5 LIFX Bulbs and 5 WEMO products.
I had not heard of the yeelights until you mentioned it above, so looked into it, and they have a IFTTT channel for the yeelights, so you could write recipies with IFTTT to use with Smartthings and Google Home.
I have just ordered a yeelight myself to test if it works with my current items, so will report back and let you know once it is set up.
@KangaWho well bu**er that’s annoying I didnt know theyd post here…good to know though. Yes I did know about the IFTTT recipes but no idea how response time will be etc…so Im glad you’ve ordered, please do post back how you are finding them once receive…v tempted esp with the price!
@Lunchplease , they work perfectly. I have 2 wall switches, 2 insight plugs and 1 standard plug, and all work flawlessly.
Google just added native support for WeMo 2 weeks ago, but even with IFTTT, they worked great.
Great thanks for that. Im thinking of the lights from them…bit unsure re the yeelights but will wait to see how you get on with the one you bought, so please do let us know how they do! Cheers @KangaWho
@Lunchplease, yeeLight arrived today, set up was easy, you just need to make sure you set Singapore as your region to get IFTTT to work, or at least that was my experience.
The app has a little lag with color changes, about 1-2 secs for a change to go to the light. The bulb itself is probably about 20% smaller than a LIFX bulb.
I connected the yeeLight channel in IFTTT and set up basic on/off control with Google Assistant, and it worked perfectly first time with my Google Home. Lag time is usual IFFT time, about 1-3 seconds depending on the time of day. So far so good. I am waiting to get a Smartthings hub, so will update again once that is back in stock and I can order it.
For the money, they work perfectly fine and I will probably buy more in the future.
Hi @KangaWho thats awesome to hear. Since our last conversation I have the Google Home and Samsung Smart things hub, as well as 2 x Wemo lights. I’m struggling to get google home to activate smart things routines via voice which seems to be a known workaround. I need a couple of bayonet lights to put about the house and don’t think the yeelights come in that variation?
I’m intrigued by the insight(wemo) switch for my main AV area but haven’t yet pulled the trigger.
I reckon when they’re on sale next I’ll look at getting a cpl yeelights anyway though.
Thanks for the update and let me know what else you’re testing!
PS the smart things hub is great so far
@KangaWho hi there, curious to know if yeelights are still working well for you and if any integration with smart things has happened or sticking to the IFTTT Google home/assistant way?
Cheers
