There is an API but from what I know it’s rather limited. There is a very powerful programming language (LUA) which works very well (Home Center 2 only though). But you can arrange virtual devices and connect those to other things (e.g. Hue, Sonos etc.)
@alex, thanks for the detailed response. I agree with @jkirk in that the silence was the most worrisome, causing wild speculation and doubt. Any news, even not so great news, is better than no news at a all…which is exactly why this topic started and devolved to what it became (although still full of good info).
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@alex Thank you very much for the thoughtful response! It’s really good to hear an update on so many items that are important to our understanding, and I can’t wait for CES.
One follow-up based on your comments. You mentioned that app slowness is exacerbated by the number of devices and smartapps. This is my biggest concern with ST that to accomplish many routine tasks like light groups, multiple schedules, etc… The best method involves multiple virtual devices and/or multiple smartapp instances. So functionality means cluttering both the app and adding overhead to the hub and cloud infrastructures (more links in the latency chain).
We are working on these issues and the IDE will improve more and more over time.
@Bbqhacker, @Jim, @Ben and I are constantly thinking of ways to make the developer site better.
I hope SmarThings continues to improve the product and the user interface. Thankfully the helpdesk is very responsive and can get problems solved, but things could be better designed.
as a challenge to show what I mean by improving the user interface design, try this: add a new mode, and then use the app on your phone to change to that mode.
Agreed. In your challenge, I use phrases in Hello, Home to change modes and also initiate a range of other actions as the mode change is occurring. I also use the “automatically say x when” triggers to do things like have the house automatically change to Night mode and lock the doors and turn off the lights and adjust the thermostats when the pattern of motion in the house indicates we are asleep.
The power is there in spades, but we need to find ways to make that more easy to discover and set up…
Can you elucidate further on your comments re: light groups and multiple schedules? I think I understand your meaning, but want to be sure. Those are things we should make simple in the platform without you having to do backflips as you’re describing, so would love to understand your exact scenarios as examples.
If more comfortable to share via email, just hit me up at alex@smartthings.com. Thanks!
Have you run a Z-wave network repair on it?
I hate to hear that you’re having such a difficult time with the SmartThings platform. I have told so many people about SmartThings. The issues I had are long gone. Even my Sonos speakers are working properly.
My prior platform was horrible. The company contacted me and asked if the local news could tour my home to see their product in action. I made up an excuse to decline the offer because I knew the system would crash or do something so random that they would probably need to cut to another feed.
SmartThings is great. I would not compare it to the higher end commercial grade hubs. I would say if you want an affordable solution that may require a little tinkering from time to time then look no further than SmartThings. This is not meant to be an insult towards SmartThings by any means. They’re new, those other companies have been around for years. I have no doubt that not only will SmartThings catch up to their competitors they will be the name that everyone in the HA industry will know and respect. Like I stated in the past it is very easy especially with the flood of hubs entering market to “abandon ship” but as the saying goes the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. SmartThings cares about their customers. Their actions clearly show this.
I work for the Government. I deal with people who feel they’re superior to everyone below them. So when Mr. Hawkinson took time to not only address this thread but to take it further and actually read it himself that’s awesome.
Things will improve, 2015 will be our year!
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I’ll actually be following CES closer than normal this year I guess!! Would be great if zwave repair utility was in the iOS app, as I don’t find it under zwave utilities.
Maybe a repeater would help, but most of my devices are hard wired and claim to be repeaters themselves. shrug
It’s encouraging to know that this area got personal attention of the CEO. An ability to develop custom apps and device handlers is perhaps the only remaining thing that keeps me interested in SmartThings, but the development workflow is the biggest PITA I have seen in my long career as a software engineer.
A lot of promises were made in the past - github integration, editor and simulator improvements, simplified app and device installation and update process, fast(er) app approval process, app store, the list goes on and on. All we’ve seen in the past six month is minor cosmetic tweaks in the IDE.
I’d suggest SmartThings take a cue from Pebble. Both companies have similar roots and are about the same age and size. Yet, Pebble IDE and development workflow is a shining example how things should be done, while SmartThings is just a crying shame.
@alex, no offense, but I’ve been hearing this in some form or another for almost a year and a half now. That’s a lifetime in gadget-world. It gets better, it gets worse, but it never “just works”
I can point you to messages posted here, in reply to support contacts, etc where 80% of what you wrote was stated.
I’ve been having issues with sunrise/set, scheduled actions occurring late/never, light switches being forgotten by the system, etc since day 1. It hasn’t been fixed in 18 months - why should we believe that “this time we mean it”?
I am so pleased that you personally responded to this thread - thank you for that. I will see what you have at CES, but at this point, it’s gotta be something great, tangible, and out yesterday. I will not be here for another year and a half of “we’re sorry and we’re working on it”
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Im happy to hear that things will be improving. Personally I can tell you that I really have been in love with the st platform but find it unsettling some of what has been said in this thread. I am relatively new to st and have lots of plans to acquire alot more smart items,outlets, switches, bulbs etc and would really like Smart things hub to be the brains. Since day one I can say that whenever I had questions I emailed support and in a couple hours to within the hour I got response on how to fix it, that responsiveness is what sold me on this system as well as the potential it has. I love the idea of hybrid hub with localized and cloud based functions and I believe smart things will prevail in HA scene. Homekit will definetely bring competiton however, smart things has gotten their feet wet already and when apple releases thier buggy first attempt to the masses smart things will have thier refined version 2 or version 1 updates that will trump any first attempt by apple. What st needs is a collaboration with known security system… maybe ADT??? 
comon ST u can do it!!
Also, I am sure I will have times when I am having trouble with st but I will make sure to be very vocal about it.
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@alex - one more frustration based question. If you have 100+ people working - why are we not seeing new device types popping up near daily??? For cryin out loud, PIN codes on locks, Nest, individual outlet control on power strips, camera support, etc… Again, a lot of these have been “coming soon” for a year.
If you didn’t have community members hacking for free (which is unbelievably awesome, by the way), we wouldn’t have half the stuff we do. What do those 100 people work on? It’s hard to think of more than a handful of devices that are 100% feature supported. Frequently, we get on/off and then the “coming soon” full support release goes on the vaporware list.
This isn’t recent, this seems to be baked into the core modus operandi - and I’m not sure I’ve seen evidence to the contrary.
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@tenzingsherpa - the hybrid hub/cloud approach was supposed to be how it worked from day one. Year and a half later, we’ll have to buy more hardware to get it. And will it even work then?
@stevesell I try to be an optimist, im hoping that ST delivers because I would like to automate my buisness with ST. Keeping my fingers crossed 
@stevesell I do agree with you though, It would be nice to see some more things in the labs make it to be fully supported status.
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What makes you think SmartThings V2 will be less buggy than Apple’s V1? Based on past experience, resent ST “upgrades” introduced more new bugs than they fixed. I agree with @stevesell, SmartThings is quick to respond to criticism with apologies and promises of future improvements (which is a good thing, to be sure), but at some point it starts getting old. And I feel we’re well beyond that point now.
@geko true very true there is no guarantee that it will be less buggy. However, being as st has been out for a year or so I would hope that their timely release of v2 when apple releases their kit will prove all they have learned and troubleshooted. Going into st i knew it wasnt quite ready for prime time, at least yet. However in order to compete with apple they gotta put all the data they recieved to make thier system more user friendly and less bug ridden.
Oh, you cracked me up right there 
Somehow I don’t see Tim Cook loosing sleep over this “competition”. How many loyal customers does Apple have who are ready to open their wallets to pay for whatever new device Apple cares to offer? Hundreds of millions! Ans ST? Maybe low tens on thousands. Even with Samsung’s backing, SmartThings is still nothing more than a blip on a radar.
I too want to see a viable competition to Apple in the smart home market and was hoping (six month ago) that SmartThings could become one, but I’ve been sorely disappointed. Yes, they have ambition and quite a few innovative ideas, but their execution has been weak to say the least and as this thread shows, frustration amongst users is growing. Meanwhile, the window of opportunity is closing fast. Once Apple puts the stick in the ground the game will be over.
Here is an example for each. Note: my setup is very small (15 GE Link bulbs in my basement, one zwave switch, two zwave dimmers, and two xmas tree zwave plugin modules); so I can only imagine how larger setups balloon. Also, I haven’t made use of Hello Home and Modes yet, so if they’re an option to solve some of these issues; it’s not very clear to me.
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I wanted my xmas trees to come on in the morning when we’re getting ready for work then be off for the day. I also wanted them to come on before we returned home and stay on until 11PM. Then on weekends, they would come on early and stay on all day since we were typically home. Pretty generic morning/evening and weekday vs weekend schedule I thought. To do this I had to group the two lights and add on/off time for weekday morning. Then I would need to group them again and give them a different name to add a second on/off time for weekend night. And a 3rd time for the weekend schedule, which would put 3 versions of these lights in the Lights/switches section. Instead, I used one on/off schedule and two instances of the “Turn on for X minutes” SmartApp; so only one instance would be in the Lights/switches. Why can’t I just add another scheduled time?
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My GE Link bulbs were purchased to provide zone control and dimming in my basement where the previous owner used a single switch to turn on 15 recessed lights across a pretty large area. I’ve zoned them off in 4 sections, so I wanted to group the bulbs by section. If I use the native grouping, I’m only allowed on/off capability in the Lights/Switches section. Instead, I went with a community solution of using a virtual dimmer for each section and an instance of the Dim With Me App. That’s 4 virtual devices and 4 SmartApp instances because the Lights/Switches section doesn’t support dimming, which is a major reason to buy connected lighting.
In general it seems like for every native device added, in order to automate them; you need multiple SmartApps and often virtual devices. Just reading the forums here, the answer to almost every “How do I ____?” question is answered with virtual device and SmartApp solutions by the community; but a lot of the questions IMO should have easier solutions.
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